


This turbulent priest

by anactoriatalksback



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Cod-mediaeval-speak, Come Marking, Felching, First Kiss, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Food Kink, Frottage, Hand Feeding, If That's What You're Into, Internalized Homophobia, Jared can be a little bit scary, Jared gets off on self-denial, Jared is a festival of moral and sexual crises, Just a shit-tonne of blasphemy really, Love Confessions, M/M, Mediaeval AU, Misuse of Consequentialist Ethical Philosophy, Misuse of Psalm 139, Misuse of holy oil, Misuse of the Te Deum, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Period-Typical Homophobia, Possessive Richard, Richard can be inconveniently perceptive, Richard is a little shit, Richard is climbing the walls with blue balls, Richard sucks Jared's fingers, Rimming, Roleplay, Self-Denial, Thomas a Becket/Henry II basically, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-01-19 00:34:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12399450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoriatalksback/pseuds/anactoriatalksback
Summary: Richard doesn't take well to coming second with Jared. Even if he's second to God.





	1. Chapter 1

‘Your Grace, it’s the King.’

‘The King? Are you certain?’

The chaplain nods. ‘He came mounted and alone, but I am sure it is he.’

‘Show him in’, says Jared.

The chaplain looks nervous. ‘I – Your Grace – forgive me, but he looks – if Your Grace could be persuaded to have - ’

Jared smiles, he hopes reassuringly – his smiles have always lacked conviction. ‘I have nothing to fear from his Majesty, my brother. Show him in.’

And yet, when his prince hurries in, Jared wonders if he should be afraid. Richard is as slim as ever – not least since he now has armies that will do his fighting for him – and in any case his violence was never in his arms. But his eyes, when they light on Jared, are leaping and febrile, and – most telling of all – he’s stopped mauling his own bottom lip.

Richard knows his own mind, and he’s angry.

All this Jared takes in with a quick glance from beneath his lashes before discreetly lowering his head.

‘Don’t’, says Richard. ‘That isn’t – look at me, Jared.’

Jared raises his head to look at Richard, standing against the fire. The flames glance off the copper of Richard’s curls and beard, and his eyes are something liquid and molten and terrifying and wondrous.

Would this be simpler, Jared wonders, if Richard were less beautiful?

‘Would you like some wine, my Prince?’

‘No’, says Richard. ‘I want – tell me why. Tell me why I had to hear from a messenger. Tell me - ’ he chokes, his words have always been too fast for his tongue, ‘why they gave me an _edict_ calling me unrighteous.’

‘Not you, my Prince’, says Jared. ‘Your war.’

Richard shakes his head impatiently. ‘Don’t. Quibble. Why didn’t you – warn me? Come to see me?’

‘My prince’, says Jared, ‘I have told you our considered thoughts about this war. You know we - ’

‘ _We_ ’, spits Richard. ‘I’m not standing in front of the Bishop of London, Jared. Why. Didn’t you. Come. To tell me?’

Jared looks, briefly, into Richard’s eyes. ‘I didn’t think you’d see me, my prince.’

‘Lies’, says Richard, in a wondering tone.

‘You didn’t’, says Jared, looking more directly at Richard now, ‘Before, you – you refused.’

Richard shivers. ‘But you got my attention, didn’t you?’

Jared doesn’t say anything.

‘Did you’, says Richard, ‘want me here? Is – is that why you – is this what you wanted?’

Jared risks a glance at his prince, and his gaze falls immediately. Richard is looking…expectant. He passes his tongue over his lips. Jared is staring at the floor, but he knows Richard is looking at him.

Jared says, quietly, ‘I am always happy to see you, my prince. Wherever – however – you want to see me.’

Richard turns, violently, on his heel, and Jared looks up.

Richard is pouring himself some wine. Over his shoulder he says ‘Two of my nobles have said they cannot countenance the war. Northumberland and Essex.’ He gives Jared a tight smile. ‘Your doing.’

Jared says nothing, but he privately agrees. The dukes have the superstitious fervour of the natural heathen. They would take anything from the Archbishop of Canterbury as a simple, direct instruction. Still, they’re generous donors and not bad men. ‘Could I persuade you - ’

‘They’d come back, though’, says Richard, ‘if you. If you changed your mind.’

Jared was expecting this. Richard continues, holding Jared’s gaze, ‘They’d listen to you. They were – they were all in favour before. All – my God, the thought of slaughtering some Frenchmen was – it was making them hard, Jared.’

Jared winces. Smiles at the same time. ‘You can – remind them of that, my prince. That a murdered Frenchman is a reliable source of tumescence. Their Graces think highly of their appendages.’

Richard shudders. ‘I’m. Not discussing Essex and Northumberland’s cocks with them, Jared. Nobody should.’ He puts down his glass. ‘What would make you..change your mind about this war, Jared?’

Jared sighs. ‘Are we under attack, my prince?’

Richard clicks his tongue. Jared presses ‘are we under attack, my prince?’

Richard huffs. ‘No.’

‘Do we foresee an attack if we do not act first?’

‘Well - ’

‘In good faith, my prince?’

‘…….No.’

‘Then we are, plainly, the aggressors.’

‘Jared - ’

‘We are spending blood and money at a time when we can ill afford neither, to do nothing but acquire lands and spoil?’

‘It was our land’, says Richard, ‘before my grandfather lost it.’

‘Yes’, says Jared. ‘But it is not. Anymore.’

‘But it could be again.’

‘My prince - ’

‘You believed’, says Richard, ‘you believed, once. In – wanting more. In this kingdom. In - ’ he takes in a breath. ‘In me.’

Oh, this is unfair. ‘I do still.’

‘Do you?’, says Richard. ‘Prove it.’

‘My prince -’

‘Do you think’, says Richard, ‘that it is wrong for a king to want – glory, Jared, not just – rest? Peace? _Safety?_ ’

‘No’, says Jared, watching Richard.

Richard raises his eyebrows at Jared. ‘And is it then wrong for a king’s subjects to give him aid?’

Jared can see where this is heading, but shakes his head.

‘And so then’, says Richard, ‘is it wrong for _you_ , your Grace, to give me such succour as you can?’

And here it comes. Here it is – the thorn, the fence of glass that Jared has to walk. He says ‘you are my king, your Majesty, and sovereign in all things.’ He keeps his eyes on Richard, who is staring at him as though daring him to finish what he’s saying ‘after God.’

Richard’s chest rises and falls, quickly. His eyes flicker. ‘After God’, he says.

And then he says ‘But God has made an….accommodation...for me before, Jared.’ He leans in. ‘You’ve…come to terms…with me before.’

Jared says nothing. Keeps his eyes on Richard.

‘Do you remember?’

Jared says nothing.

‘It was a triumph’, says Richard, and his face splits into an excited, poisonous smile. ‘Church and crown, meeting…softly….in the middle. For the good of the kingdom.’ He looks at Jared. ‘Do they know?’

Jared swallows. ‘Know - ’

‘Do they know’, says Richard, ‘how their pristine knight of Christ bent their king to his will?’

Jared licks his lips, and watches Richard’s eyes follow the movement. ‘You’, he begins. ‘You bent me to yours as well, my prince.’

Richard’s smile is wider now. ‘Yes, I did.’


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Richard and Jared lock horns. Ecclesiastical courts, Old Testament references, Jared gives being inflexible a shot.

_Six months earlier:_

 

‘Your Grace, it’s the King.’

‘The King? Are you certain?’

The chaplain nods. ‘He came mounted and alone, but I am sure it is he.’

‘Show him in’, says Jared, puzzled but hopeful. He hasn’t seen his prince since he was first ordained. How is he, he wonders, he’ll stay up all night with his ciphers and his maps and his campaigns, he won’t eat or sleep unless he’s reminded, and with Jared gone –

He can feel his heart flutter and scolds himself. He knows – he thinks he knows – why Richard is here, and this is going to be entirely difficult enough without – well, without the pulsing, terrible wants that he ought to have strangled in their infancy, even if they weren’t entire and mortal sins. It’s – almost a relief, now that he has been ordained. He must not, therefore he cannot. He will not. His desires can rend him – to pieces, if they please. His strife – his triumph – is his offering, every day, every hour, to his God. The greater the pain, the greater the worth, the value of his gift.

Jared will exult, then, after Richard has gone. To behold his prince’s narrow, impossibly beautiful face, to glory in his burning intelligence, his fierce ambition, to ache, to watch, and to remain steadfast and still and waiting. Washed anew. Pure for his maker.

But when his prince strides in, Jared feels his whole body draw into itself. Richard looks well enough – his eyes are sunken, he’s clearly been neglecting himself, but it’s better than Jared feared. But he’s clearly under strain. He’s pulling his gloves off his hands as he walks with quick, nervous movements, and he’s staring at Jared.

‘You’re not ill’, are the first words out of his mouth.

Surprised, Jared shakes his head.

‘But you couldn’t – you wouldn’t _deign_ to come to London yourself.’

Ah. They are going to have the fight that Jared expected after all, and face to face to boot. Jared’s always known that his prince has a…histrionic…streak.

‘I thought’, says Jared carefully, ‘that you would see the messenger.’

‘I did’, says Richard. ‘I’d also have seen you.’

Jared frowns. It’s….puzzling, this. He hates it when his prince lies to him, but takes comfort in the fact that he is so very bad at it. But now - now Richard seems to think he’s being sincere. Which, in all likelihood, means that he has learned to lie more adeptly in their time apart.

The reflection hurts, but Jared thinks it’s as well to arm himself.

‘You didn’t’, says Jared. ‘Before. I came to London earlier, my prince.’

Richard’s eyes widen, and then skitter away. ‘I - ’

Ah. So Jared had been right. A bleak satisfaction, but Jared has learned to take his joys where he can find them.

‘I thought – I needed you to pay attention, my prince.’

Richard’s brow clears. ‘My attention?’, he says. ‘You wanted my attention.’ He laughs, a little burst of relief. ‘Was that all?’

Jared sighs. ‘My prince - ’

‘It succeeded’, says Richard. ‘You – I should have remembered, Jared’, and he is regarding Jared with a smile both vexed and fond, ‘you always had a – histrionic – streak.’

Jared is too troubled to even take issue with the effrontery of Richard, of all men, saying this. ‘My prince, I was in earnest.’ Richard’s lips tighten, and Jared continues ‘When Lord Guilfoyle murdered the priest - ’

‘The priest’, says Richard, ‘was – he debauched girls in his parish, Jared.’

‘That was never proved, my prince. This was a matter for the ecclesiastical courts, as well Lord Guilfoyle should have known. We would have investigated the priest, and tried him fairly.’

Richard barks a laugh. ‘The ecclesiastical courts!’

Jared flushes. ‘The separation of the secular and ecclesiastical courts is - ’

‘A shield’, says Richard, ‘for – the _worst_ of the clergy.’

‘Justice would have been done’, says Jared. ‘I would have seen to it, my prince, I swear to you.’

Richard hunches a shoulder. ‘Perhaps.’

‘But the matter was taken from our hands’, says Jared. ‘In any event, my prince, the priest was not tried in the secular courts either. Lord Guilfoyle executed him. Without even the barest shred of courtesy of a confessor. The meanest villein in all the land is allowed that, my prince, but a priest – one of my flock - died unkennelled. Unshriven.’

 ‘Well’, says Richard, ‘Guilfoyle doesn’t – like the church.’

‘Does that excuse it?’, says Jared. ‘Does that excuse the violation of this lone remaining protection - ’

Richard is drawing himself up. ‘From me? Protection – from _me_?’

It was the wrong thing to say, he knows, but Jared can’t stop now. ‘Yes, protection from you. My prince, you are dread and puissant in all things in this kingdom. All that you see, all that you touch, is yours, all for you. We have scant enough, we who serve the church - ’

‘You?’, says Richard. ‘You have – scant enough?’ He frowns. ‘Do you – need more?’

‘I have all I need’, says Jared.

‘You gave away all your possessions’, says Richard.

‘The day you had me ordained’, says Jared. ‘Yes.’

‘It was – dramatic’, says Richard.

Jared allows himself a smile. ‘You did say I had a histrionic streak.’

Richard smiles back. ‘I did.’

There is a moment of quiet before Richard says ‘You didn’t – need to, you know.’ When Jared looks at him, Richard says ‘Your houses, your clothes, your – your gold plate, everything. It was – ostentatious. The – lack of ostentation.’

Jared says ‘I gave them to my children.’

Richard winces. ‘Can you stop - ’

‘They are my children, my prince’, says Jared. ‘They are under my care, too, as they are under yours. I am – their shield, as you are their sword. My hand must be stretched over them. And when it is struck away – when one of my children devours another – he must be punished, as Cain was punished.’ And Jared takes in a breath. ‘I asked – I wanted your arm to bear the cane, my prince, as is your right – as is your _duty_. I wanted you to arrest Lord Guilfoyle. But since you did not – since you refused to even _see_ me - ’

‘You – took it on yourself to punish’, says Richard.

Jared shrugs. ‘I had to.’

‘Excommunication’, says Richard.

‘I hardly think’, says Jared, ‘that Lord Guilfoyle – or you – care overmuch about the rites of the church, my prince.’

Richard doesn’t bother to deny it. ‘That’s not - the _point_ , and you know it. When you attack my nobles – Jared, you attack _me_.’

‘That’s not quite - ’

‘How not?’

‘It can only be seen so if you support Lord Guilfoyle. If you were to renounce him - ’

‘No’, says Richard, immediately.

Jared was expecting no other response. He’s silent.

Richard sighs, rubbing his hands over his face. ‘Jared, I – even if I didn’t agree with Guilfoyle, which I do – I – I _need_ him. You know that.’

‘For your war’, says Jared.

‘ _Our_ war’, says Richard. ‘My God, Jared, how can you – you, I didn’t think I – you drew up the plans, you talked to the Bishop of Avignon, you were the one to induce Guilfoyle to lend us his troops, how can you - ’

‘I did’, says Jared. ‘But – my prince, that was before you sent me away.’

Richard’s shaking his head, vehemently. ‘No. No. No no no, I was ready for that, _your Grace_. I never sent you away. I gave you a _task,_ Jared. You - _went_ away.’

‘You did give me a task’, says Jared. ‘Would you have me do it badly?’

‘Badly?’, says Richard. ‘Is – your task to – brook me? Defy me? Obstruct me for – for the – the slimmest of scruples?’

‘The scruples are all we have, my prince.’

Richard lets out a noisy breath. ‘You just – I know this, I should have – with your, your eyes, and your, you always, you – Jared, you cannot – d’you think you’re powerless? You? Now?’

‘Not powerless, my prince’, says Jared. ‘But my weapons are – depleted, and I cannot put them down or relinquish them.’

‘Weapons’, says Richard. ‘Weapons fighting _me_.’

‘Defending my flock’, says Jared.

‘Against. _Me_.’, says Richard.

Jared says, after a moment, ‘If necessary.’

Richard flinches. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. ‘You’re very. _Zealous_.’

Jared lifts his eyes to Richard’s. ‘I do not take my duties lightly, my prince. I never have.’

‘I know’, says Richard. ‘ _God,_ I know.’

‘You placed this on me’, says Jared, and his eyes widen at the reproach in his own voice, ‘you – you gave me this. And everything you give me – everything, my prince – is sacred to me.’

‘Damn you, don’t - ’ Richard’s eyes close. Jared can see him breathe in, shakily, and out. When he speaks, he sounds a little calmer. ‘So – this is – _my_ fault?’

‘Not fault, my prince’, says Jared. ‘But – your doing, yes.’

‘Pedant’, says Richard, in a tone Jared can’t quite describe. He finds himself smiling, and he doesn’t know why.

‘I asked you not to do it’, says Jared. ‘I asked you to take this from me. I knew – I knew I could not serve both, even if I didn’t have the words for it at the time. I asked you, I asked you not to send me away. My prince, I _begged_ you.’

‘On your knees’, nods Richard, with a look in his eyes that makes Jared feel exposed and too hot for his skin. ‘Perhaps’, Richard swallows, ‘perhaps you. Didn’t beg hard enough.’

Jared doesn’t understand. ‘What more could - ’

‘Perhaps’, says Richard, coming towards Jared, ‘Perhaps _I’ve_ been trying the wrong – method – all along.’

He drops to his knees in front of Jared, and raises a tentative, shaking hand to Jared’s thigh. Even over his robe, the touch burns.

‘My prince - ’, says Jared. He hates his own voice, how thin, how fragile, how fearful, how _hopeful_ , it is.

The hand creeps up, a minute but unmistakeable declaration of intent. Richard shuffles closer, tongue flicking out over his lips.

‘Shall we’, says Richard, ‘start again?’


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I knew’, says Jared, ‘that you – you want to have your own way, Richard. I’ve always known this. But - ’ he takes in a breath, ‘I never – thought that you could be so careless of your honour. Or - ’ and he’s screaming at himself to stop, but he’s too hurt to do it, ‘or so careless of me.’

‘My prince’, says Jared, in a shaking voice, ‘what are you doing?’

Richard doesn’t answer. His hands move down, rapidly and jerkily, to the hem of Jared’s robe. His teeth bite at his bottom lip.

‘Richard – ahh.’

Richard’s hands have slipped beneath the robe and are creeping up, up, slowly, stealthily but with seemingly greater assurance. Only fingertips, featherlight, raising gooseflesh on the backs of Jared’s calves, but by the time they’ve reached Jared’s knee he feels the pressure of hot palms.

He can barely fight through the thick swirling fog of confusion and want, but he seizes Richard’s wrists as his hands make to inch higher up Jared’s thigh.

Such delicate wrists, he thinks. Fine. Birdlike. He glances down at his own large, ungainly hands gripping Richard through his robe, and swallows. ‘My prince, I – why are you doing this?’

Richard looks up. His cheeks are washed pink, his mouth red. He’s looking a little annoyed, moments from a tantrum. His eyes keep flickering from Jared’s eyes to his legs, where Jared is having to will away the first, shameful stirrings of the _thing_ , his burthen, his curse.

‘If I release you, my prince’, says Jared, ‘will you – will you do the same?’

‘Is that what you want?’, asks Richard.

His gaze is very sharp. Jared finds his own falling.

‘Jared’, says Richard. ‘Look at me. Do - ’ he swallows, ‘do you want me to stop?’

‘Yes’, is what Jared ought to say, crisply and decisively. Instead he says, and oh how he hates the quaver in his own voice ‘Why do you ask, my prince?’

Richard smiles – the quick, satisfied smile of an archer hitting his mark. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at me, Jared.’

Jared recoils. Richard’s hands fall away from him, and he rises slowly, unsteadily, eyes still on Jared. ‘Do they know, Jared? Your bishops, your canons, your chaplains? Do they know that their pure, immaculate, stainless Archbishop is - ’ he stops a moment before hurrying on, ‘a sodomite?’

Jared flinches. Everything in the room seems to recede. He can observe his thoughts, shuffling into place, with almost detached interest. His prince, he always thought, cared more for systems and structures than people. How indiscreet he must have been, for – and how long, how long has he known?

Richard comes closer, his voice dropping into a rapt, bewitched rhythm. ‘Do they know of the cup-bearers, the peasants, the sweaty little _sluts_ he’s tupped?’

‘Richard’, Jared pleads, ‘you - ’

‘Do they know’, says Richard, ‘that after I had a bath, he’d be waiting – waiting with a warmed towel? To rub me down? To wrap around me? Fresh from the – the thick-fingered attentions of some _farmhand_?’

‘Richard’, says Jared, ‘I never – I never – I wanted to _protect_ you from - ’

‘Protect me’, says Richard, with an ugly laugh, ‘I could – I could _feel_ you, Jared, your eyes, your, your hands, your voice, your _breath_ on the back of my neck, I - ’

Jared squeezes his eyes shut. ‘My prince, I’m so – I’m so sorry, I never wanted - ’

‘What would they say, Jared’, says Richard, his lips twisting, ‘what would they say if they knew?’

What would they say? Oh, Jared hardly cares. Let them, let them all know, Jared will submit, he will surrender himself, what does it matter, now that he knows his prince knows.

‘All this argument’, says Richard, ‘the talking, the persuasion, and, and the solution was – there – all the time.’

‘To arrest me’, says Jared. He says it calmly, he’s interested in the process.

Richard says nothing, watches him. Jared continues ‘I suppose it’s unlikely that you’ll respect my prerogative to be tried in the ecclesiastical courts.’

Richard shrugs.

‘And then you’d install another, more – amenable – Archbishop.’

Richard says nothing.

Jared draws himself together. ‘I won’t fight it. I will not – compound my sins by perjuring myself.’

‘ _God_ ’, says Richard on a breath. ‘You’re so – I don’t want to get rid of you, Jared. I don’t want to – shame you, disgrace you, I – why do you make everything so _difficult_.’

‘I’m making it easy, I thought’, says Jared, puzzled.

Richard glares at him. ‘Stay. Stay in your post, Jesu knows why you want to, but – be – mine, again, Jared. My – my friend, as you were. On – my side. With me.’

Jared stares at Richard. Finally, he says, ‘My prince, I want to understand. Is my – compliance – the price of your silence?’

Richard winces. ‘I _knew_ you’d be like this.’

‘You _should_ have known’, says Jared. ‘My prince, it was – one thing – when I – when I thought that I - disgusted you – that you abominated the thing I was, that you would denounce me. I could tolerate that. I could bear it, if I knew you were acting from principle. Even if I thought mercy would better become you, I could countenance justice, whatever it cost me. But this? _This_?’

‘Jared - ’

Jared holds up a hand. He advances towards Richard, who backs away. Jared follows him, continuing ‘And for what? For _Guilfoyle_? For one Godless scoffer? ’

Richard’s back has hit the wall by the fireplace. He takes in a shaking breath. ‘I – you know this. I _need_ him.’

‘Oh yes’, says Jared, leaning in to place one hand on either side of Richard’s head, trapping his king. ‘For your _war_.’

Richard licks his lips. ‘ _Our_ war.’

‘For your war’, says Jared, ‘your little _adventure_ , to water French soil with the blood of a thousand Englishmen and a thousand and one Frenchmen, and there to plant your little _flag_.’

Richard’s breath is coming very fast. ‘Jared - ’

‘And for this’, says Jared, ‘for your grubbing, tawdry little excursion, you think nothing of prostituting yourself? Of blackmail?’

Richard’s staring at Jared. His eyes are very dark.

‘I knew’, says Jared, ‘that you – you want to have your own way, Richard. I’ve always known this. But - ’ he takes in a breath, ‘I never – thought that you could be so careless of your honour. Or - ’ and he’s screaming at himself to stop, but he’s too hurt to do it, ‘or so careless of me.’

‘Jared, I - ’

Jared sighs. He’s tired now, and feels suddenly very cold. ‘You – you must do as you think fit, my prince. If you – if I am suffered to continue, I must do as my conscience bids me – as I said I would the day you bade me don the mitre. If you cannot – tolerate that, then you have the weapons you need. I will not fight you.’

He makes to lift himself off Richard, when he feels the touch of his prince’s hand on his arm. Richard is staring at him.

‘Ask me’, he whispers, ‘ask me how I knew about your - ’ he swallows, ‘ask me how I knew.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear God, it took a while for these prosy motherfuckers to get to the point where they could conceivably get busy.
> 
> Also: I realised I hadn't properly credited the line 'I've seen the way you look at me'. It's shamelessly cribbed from @the-emef's fabulous 'Moving day' story. Go read it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has to – he must do penance for so much. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. He will not be absolved any earlier if he takes any less pleasure from his sin.

‘Ask me how I knew’, says Richard.

Jared stares. ‘How did you – I assumed that you  - ’

‘I _followed_ you’, Richard interrupts. ‘More – more than once.’ His Adam’s apple bobs, convulsively. ‘I – I’d – follow you to the taverns. I’d order – oh God, I don’t even know, whatever _swill_ the yokels drank, I’d watch you, I’d, I’d look at whoever you – whoever followed you out, I’d’, he swallows, ‘did they – look like me’. He looks at Jared, sourly. ‘They didn’t. They never did.’

No, they didn’t. That was deliberate.

‘I used to – Jesu, I used to – I – I wondered. What – what you did. What you – permitted. The – the sounds you’d make. Where, how, how often, I -’

‘My prince, _please_ \- ’

‘I’d’, says Richard, urgently, rapidly, as though he needs to say the words before he regrets them, ‘I used to – touch myself – thinking. About it.’

Richard looks at Jared. Jared whose blood is roaring in his ears. Who can do nothing but stare back, stupidly.

Remember, he tells himself, remember that your prince has learned to lie.

‘My prince’, he says, speaking as calmly as he can. ‘this is – unnecessary. Unnecessary and cruel.  I – mmph!’

Because his prince, with a strangled growl, has launched himself at him. It feels as though a small, wet storm has attacked the corner of his mouth. Richard’s hands bite into Jared’s shoulders, his thin, bitten lips are opening against Jared’s chin, his breath hot and urgent against Jared’s cheek, until Jared’s body moves unbidden. His fingers move through his prince’s curls, he nibbles at his liege’s lips until they open for him, open like cherry blossom in April, open for Jared to coax inside his tongue, to catch his prince’s racking groan against his own.

When they part for air, they’re both panting, and Jared knows that he will have to strive mightily with himself to regret even a moment of what happened.

It’s – _difficult_ – to remember when Richard’s staring at his mouth as though he believes, finally, after a lifetime of shrugging scepticism, in the Holy Grail.

‘My prince - ’

‘Show me’, breathes Richard.

‘Sh- show you?’

‘Show me what you – what you did.’ Richard coughs. ‘With those boys. I – I want to know – if I was right.’

Jared stares at Richard. ‘I – what – what did you – imagine, my prince?’

Richard’s chest rises and falls as he expels a long breath. ‘So – so many things’, he says, quietly.

Jared leans in, he needs the support of the wall, he feels as though he’ll break. ‘Show me’, he says. ‘Show me what you thought.’

Richard gazes at Jared. He turns his head, slowly, and Jared’s about to apologise, to run from the room, when Richard carefully noses at his wrist.

‘I - ’ says Jared, and his breath stammers when Richard’s lips move, slowly, from his wrist, up to his palm, to the tips of his fingers.

And when Richard takes his fingers into his mouth, his breath stops entirely.

Jared knows his hands are large, preposterous, to match with his long freakish frame. But when Richard’s hot mouth swallows his fingers, when his tongue swipes, with unpractised, voracious urgency at him, he feels…

‘My prince’, he says, softly, reverently.

Richard pulls off his fingers, and Jared’s eyes close at the cool air swirling around them, at the obscene wet sound they make leaving Richard’s mouth. ‘My – my breeches. I want - ’

And Jared’s hand moves, swiftly, undoing the strings on Richard’s breeches, slipping inside, catching Richard’s hiss against his mouth as he cups his prince, rubs his knuckles against his balls, swallows Richard’s groans.

‘Oh God’, says Richard. ‘oh God I - ’

‘Is this’, says Jared, drawing back (Richard whines), ‘is this what you imagined?’

‘it’s - ’ says Richard, his eyes glazing, ‘I – oh Jesu, Jesu, your hands, God, oh God, I - ’ he seems to give up, snatching at Jared’s other hand, sucking feverishly at his fingers.

When Richard thrusts his own hand back to Jared, Jared can’t help but recoil. ‘My prince, I - ’

‘Take me’, says Richard, in a harsh whisper. ‘I want you to – I _want_ you to.’

Jared stares at Richard for a long moment. ‘It – my prince, it doesn’t – that’s not always - ’

Richard shoves Jared off him and turns around. ‘ _Do it._ ’

Jared stares at his fingers, wet and glistening with the royal spit. His other hand reaches, slowly, to his prince’s breeches, pulling them off his pale, perfect backside. His breath catches in his throat. Reverently, his dripping fingers trail down, down, down. Hushed, he parts Richard’s cheeks. His eyes flutter closed at Richard’s moan. Slowly, carefully, his fingers circle that pink hole.

‘My prince’, he whispers, ‘I want you to be certain. Please, I couldn’t bear it if – _ahhh_.’

Richard has wriggled so that Jared’s finger has slipped inside Richard to the nail.

They both hold still. Richard’s so tight, he – Jared pets him, soothes him, murmurs nonsense into his ear.

‘Shhhh, shhhhh, Richard, my darling boy, I have you, I have you, beloved, I - ’

And then Richard says, in a strained, excitable whisper, ‘ _More_.’

‘Are you - ’ Richard has to be, this can’t be comfortable for him, ‘Richard, wait, you have to - ’

And then Richard reaches out, blindly, and grips the back of Jared’s thigh.

‘More’, he says. ‘Take me, Jared, _use_ me, I want - ’

And then Richard seems to give up any attempts at persuasion and shoves himself back on Jared’s finger. Hard.

He lets out a wounded, guttural groan. Jared’s torn between the desire to console him and scold him. ‘Richard, I told you, darling, please - ’

‘M- _more_ ’, says Richard.

And the vehement clutch at Jared’s finger confirms his prince’s words.

Shakily, Jared lets out a sigh. He moves. Probes. Retreats. Silences his prince’s whine by returning with a second finger and a deep, satisfied groan. He knits his fingers together. Moves them apart. Manoeuvres. Makes room for himself. Makes way.

And he hears his prince chant ‘Oh God, God, oh Jared, yes, more, more, _more_ ’, and swallows. Leans his forehead against his prince’s thin shoulder.

Feels Richard turn his head so that the curls at his nape brush the top of Jared’s head. Hears him say ‘You should – I want you – inside me, Jared.’

Jared raises his head. ‘Are you - ’

‘My _God_ ’, says Richard, and Jared knows that tone well, ‘how can you even – _take_ me, Jared.’ Jared gasps and his fingers speed up. Richard’s head lolls forward. ‘Oh God, yes, yes, like that.’

Jared takes in a breath. Pulls away his fingers. Shushes his prince’s whine of displeasure. Whips up his robe – he knows he looks ridiculous, but he’s used to it – and nudges at his prince’s pouting hole with his length.

‘ _Ahhhh_ ’, groans Richard, nails scratching at the wall, ‘yes, I, _yes_ ’.

It’s – it’s only a little, at first. Richard needs to – Jared needs to give him time. But if he’s being honest – and Jared did say he would not compound his sins with perjury, and why begin in the quiet of his own skull – it’s too… who knows what madness this is, when the enchantment will lift, how much Richard will need to forgive himself and Jared. They can’t – they will not – do this again. Jared has to…. Prolong it. Eke out the terrifying, wondrous, abominable delight of it.

He has to – he must do penance for so much. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. He will not be absolved any earlier if he takes any less pleasure from his sin.

So Jared is slow. Gentle. Careful with his prince.

But he should know by now that Richard is …ungentle…with his own delicate body.

He rocks back on Jared’s cock, violently, and matches Jared’s shocked groan with one of his own.

Shoves back. Again. Harder.

Jared puts out a hand to stay him. ‘My prince, I – please, love, you’ll hurt yourself, I - ’

‘ _More_ ’, says Richard, through gritted teeth.

 ‘I’ll give you more’, promises Jared, ‘I’ll give it to you, but my prince, wait, I’ll come to you, I – _ohhhhh_.’

‘More’, says Richard, bucking beneath him, ‘damn you, will you – will you make your sovereign beg?’

Jared swallows, passes a trembling hand down his prince’s flank, whispers ‘Hold, my prince.’

And lets himself go.

His hips snap, his fingers tighten on his prince’s pale, narrow hips, he plunders that dark heat. He can barely tell if the long, keening wail he hears is from his throat or Richard’s.

He feels Richard jerk beneath him, knows that he’s spending against his belly, shudders and finds his own release.

Afterwards, he stands draped over his prince’s back, chest heaving. Slowly he stands. Extricates himself, murmuring soothingly over Richard’s hiss, and sinks to the floor.

Richard turns, languidly, and looks at him. He looks….debauched. Well-used. Triumphant.

‘I knew’, he says, ‘I _knew_ you’d be like this.’

Jared looks away.

* * *

 

Jared lifts the excommunication against Guilfoyle. His own vessel is crawling, he must pick out the mote in his own eye, what right has he to stand in judgement.

A week later he receives word from his prince. A grant that his great-grandfather had instituted that subsequent generations had allowed to lapse, and that Richard, his gracious and munificent sovereign, has decided to reinstate.

The labourer is worthy of his hire, thinks Jared, but he hardly knows for what service he is being paid. He wants to tear up the letter, but that’s selfish, he knows, to indulge in his own private guilt while his flock starves.

He calls together a synod of his bishops and lets them know of his decision. In penance, he says, for having forsworn himself, he will submit to being flogged in Canterbury. The guilt, he stresses, is particular, the prince’s generosity general.

As the lash raises great hot rubies upon his back, Jared offers up his pain. My offering, he thinks, my gift.

He only wishes he knew whom the gift was meant for.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Is that – what your God gives you, Jared?’, says Richard. ‘Is it – to be – punished? The – guarantee – of being punished? Always? Of – of continual guilt? Reasons – to be – chastised?’

_Now:_

‘So’, says Richard, sitting down, ‘let’s – talk.’

Jared bows his head and takes a seat, at a respectful – _safe_ – distance from his prince.

Richard watches him, with a twitch around his eyes, but says nothing. After a moment of quiet he says ‘I thought we could...meet halfway. As we did’ and his eyes fly to Jared’s before darting away, ‘last time.’

Jared wills away his blush. He cannot. He must not. He will not give in. To his prince, seeking and hungry and fierce. He will not look at his lips, blown and bitten scarlet. He cannot. He must not. He will not.

‘My prince, I cannot take the credit for – you contrived that all yourself. Did you – receive my letter? My gratitude for your generosity?’

‘The grant?’ Richard hunches a shoulder. ‘You – moved first. Thank you. For lifting Guilfoyle’s excommunication.’

Jared lifts his shoulders. ‘It - it was nothing, my prince. I reacted – over-harshly, before. I realised my error, and took steps to correct it. You did not – have to - ’

‘Respond -  in - in kind?’, says Richard.

Jared flushes, and speaks hurriedly. ‘I am – it was an obscure provision, my prince, and ancient besides, I am - ’ he musters a smile, fights back a little stab of jealousy, ‘Impressed. You are well advised now, it seems.’

‘I am’, says Richard, with a short laugh. ‘Jared, do you not – _you_ told me about it. It was in the book you left me to read. When you were still my Chancellor. Before – this.’

Jared stares at Richard. Yes, he’d left Richard a book – a guide to the forgotten bye-laws and scabbed-over local disputes and obscure regulations that Richard could use to his advantage, or that could be used against him. But he had never thought – Richard had received the book with the same distrait flap of the hand with which he greeted Jared whenever he thought Jared was being pettifogging or overcautious.

‘You – you read the book?’ He can feel his eyelashes flutter, his lips curl into a hopeful smile, and hates himself.

‘I did’, says Richard, his lips tight, his eyes intent on Jared. ‘All of it.’

Jared looks up at Richard. If Richard’s read everything that Jared left for him, then he’s read -

‘Including’, says Richard, ‘the reminder that all subjects provide what they can to their king in times of war.’

And there it is.

This, Jared acknowledges, is inconvenient.

He takes in a breath. ‘The Church’, he says carefully, ‘cannot of course provide soldiers.’

‘No’, says Richard, grinning easily at Jared, oh Jared’s missed that smile, it’s rare but powerfully, painfully beautiful, the smile that says _this is perfect, this is ours,_ _share this with me_ , ‘No, you said so. In the book.’ He leans forward. ‘But money – money you _can_ give me.’

Oh.

Oh dear.

Jared sits up straight. He’d better pay attention. Richard is intelligent when unblinded by his personal preoccupations, and if he has come armed with the weapons that Jared made for him, then Jared must improvise.

‘My prince’, he says, ‘it would be….wrong…..to ask us to pay for a war that we believe to be unrighteous.’

‘Come on, Jared’, says Richard with some impatience. ‘That isn’t – what if every one of my subjects said that? Am I – do you want me make account of – of all the ways I spend every peasant’s taxes? Every – every scruple? Every – every hand-wringing, m-mealy-mouthed objection?’ And he gives Jared a very pointed look.

‘My prince’, says Jared, ‘the two cases aren’t the same. You are not asking for taxes for several purposes, but money for one particular use.’

‘That _you_ don’t like’, says Richard.

‘That _we_ – the Church - don’t like’, says Jared.

‘But the principle’, says Richard, ‘is the same, isn’t it? So – so you could argue that it is – unrighteous – to pay for anything that you – you disapprove of?’

Jared sighs. Richard’s never been one to let a point go.

‘Well?’, says Richard.

‘My prince, we need to acknowledge that our world is fallen and our choices constrained by - ’

‘Yes, yes, yes’, says Richard, flapping his hand, ‘but _in principle_? In principle, if – if you pay taxes without – without wanting an account, to the last penny,  of its uses, then – then you have already – admitted – wrong? The possibility of wrong? Of – of unrighteousness?’

‘My prince - ’

‘Haven’t you?’

Jared sighs again.

‘So then’, says Richard triumphantly, ‘we’ve already established what a – what a _slut_ the Church is. We’re just – haggling over the price!’

Jared wrinkles his nose. ‘My prince, do you really want to urge this reasoning to your subjects? Or to some of my bishops?’

Richard winces. ‘No, it – we were – no. No! It was – argument.  I didn’t - ’

‘Because, as you point out, that would suggest making a precise account of how you spend every penny of every one of your subjects’ taxes - ’

‘Yes, thank you, Jared - ’

‘I suppose it could be done if we marked the monies that we received from every individual source so that we knew where it was going - ’

‘Thank you, Jared - ’

‘But that would lead to – practical – difficulties - ’

‘Yes, _thank you_ , Jared - ’

‘You have about three million subjects, so I really don’t think it would be remotely practicable to carry out the exercise for all of them - ’

‘Jared - ’

‘The administrative cost and effort alone - ’

‘Jared - ’

‘Although I suppose you could select a few of your subjects to test the idea?’

‘You’re – you’re enjoying this, aren’t you - ’

‘Although how you’d select them would be –‘

‘ _That will_ _do_ , Jared.’

‘So we’re agreed, then?’

‘It was a figure of _speech_ , Jared’, says Richard on a whine.

‘And did you mean to call holy mother Church a slut?’

Richard has the grace to blush, but looks mulish. ‘It was a figure of speech, Jared.’

Jared decides not to push for an apology.

Richard’s watching Jared, and he seems to be turning something over in his brain.

‘So’, he says, with careful casualness, ‘if you – if I could – if you liked the war – if you changed your mind - then you’d…pay?’

Jared sits up straighter. ‘I would – need to call a general synod. I could not make such a decision alone- ’

‘Lies’, says Richard, ‘you just – tell them what you’ve decided.’

Jared flushes. ‘My prince, I can’t – I would need to consult - ’

‘What did you do’, says Richard, leaning forward, ‘last time?’

Jared feels himself turn a deeper red. ‘Last time was – I acted alone when I excommunicated Lord Guilfoyle, and I was – hasty. It was – only right – that I make amends alone.’

Richard laughs, a short, bitter laugh. ‘Amends. For -  I know _what_ you were making amends for, Jared.’

Jared closes his eyes. ‘Please, my prince.’

‘Were you’, says Richard, leaning forward – Jared starts back – ‘making – amends – for me as well?’

Jared wets his lips. ‘I –‘

‘It would be like you’, says Richard, with a thin, poisonous smile, ‘always – always trying to – spare me.’

Jared doesn’t say anything. What can he say? In truth, he _was_ making amends for Richard as well. Not for Richard’s sin: his prince’s faults are – entirely removed from Jared’s own fleshly weaknesses, and Jared will permit him to answer for them himself. Whatever – madness possessed Richard to ask for the thing that Jared was all too willing to provide, he cannot be held responsible for it. Jared, though, must hold himself to account. For indulging in his own weakness. For allowing Richard rein with his own – demons, his own hobgoblins, however temporary.

‘Well?’ says Richard. He bends in. Jared springs back and tries to mask his rudeness. ‘My prince, I - ’

‘Stop it’, hisses Richard. ‘I’ve – I _saw_ you, Jared. Shying like a horse. Behaving like – like a virgin left alone with a bawd – you make me feel like a _rapist_.’

‘Never, my prince’, says Jared, putting out a hand, but no, no, it isn’t safe. He tries to snatch back his stupid, traitorous hand, but Richard grabs it. Holds on to it.

‘Did I?’, says Richard, looking intently at Jared, ‘did I – did I force you? Force – myself – on you?’

‘No, my prince’, says Jared, gripping his prince’s hand, ‘no, never, how can you even – it was me, my prince, all me, my weakness, you didn’t, you couldn’t - ’

Richard’s face is changing. His hand turns in Jared’s, holding tightly – not the hold of a frightened child, as before, but the very definite grip of a captor. His fingers bite into Jared’s.

‘I was right’, he said, ‘you were – remembering my sins. In your orisons.’

‘Not – your sins, my prince’, says Jared, breathing through his nose as calmly as he can, ‘They were my – weakness, I cannot – load my burthens onto your shoulders. My prince, you’re hurting me.’

‘Yes’, says Richard, ‘I could – do you like it? When – I hurt you?’

Jared’s breath stops. His eyes fly to his prince’s. Richard is examining him with his head to one side. His eyes are scanning Jared’s face. Jared’s seen him look that way at a map, a coded message, a problem to solve. Intent, curious, with an eye alive to points of attack, weaknesses, cracks, fissures. He’s never thought his prince would ever look that way at him.

He shivers, and expels his breath on a gasp as Richard’s fingers tighten.

‘I wondered’, says Richard, ‘because – I heard that you – submitted yourself – to be flogged.’

‘That’, says Jared, ‘is a common form of penance. We mortify the flesh, my prince, to - ’

‘Oh, I know’, says Richard, ‘that’s not – _that_ didn’t make me curious.’ He leans in a little closer, his fingers tighten a little more, ‘no…. what made me wonder, Jared – is that you _stopped_ going.’

Jared takes in a shaking breath. Richard’s fingers are cutting off the blood to his fingers. When he lets go, Jared will feel a screaming in his veins as, little by little, the feeling returns. The next morning, his wrists will be mottled purple.

And all that Jared will be able to offer – all that is left to him, in his shame and his endless, terrible hunger – is the desire to abuse himself, to slake his vicious, singing appetite – and his denial.

This much he can do.

‘I’m right, aren’t I’, says Richard. ‘You stopped – you stopped just as soon as you knew that it wasn’t – punishment.’

‘My prince, please - ’

‘That you _liked_ it.’

‘I - ’

‘Is that – what your God gives you, Jared?’, says Richard. ‘Is it – to be – punished? The – guarantee – of being punished? Always? Of – of continual guilt? Reasons – to be – chastised?’

Jared’s eyes fly to Richard’s.

‘Because’, says Richard, ‘I – I could – give you. That. I could. Hurt you.’ He swallows. ‘If. If you want that.’


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘You have – a duty of obedience – to your sovereign, Jared.’  
> ‘After - ’  
> ‘Yes’, says Richard. ‘after God, I know. But’ he is staring at Jared, ‘in earthly matters?’  
> Jared licks his lips. ‘I – I owe you my obedience, my prince.’  
> Richard grins again. ‘So’, he says, ‘prove it.’

Jared stares at Richard. His prince is scarlet, his breath is coming quickly, and his eyes are bright and restless.

Jared’s voice sounds distant. Thin, to his own ears. ‘What do you mean, my prince?’

‘I could’, says Richard, his fingers twisting together, his eyes fixed on Jared’s, ‘strike you? As much as, as – you would. Tell me to. I could. Have you bent over?’ The colour flies from Richard’s cheeks. Rises again. ‘A-arse raised. To be. Flogged. Would you - ’

Jared gasps. ‘My prince, what are you - ’

‘Or’, says Richard, speaking faster, his eyes are still on Jared’s but Jared knows that look, Richard barely sees him now, ‘I could. Bind you. Your – your wrists. With rope. Tight. Frayed. They’d – they’d pull at you. Your – your skin. You’re pale, Jared, they wouldn’t – I’ve seen your wrists, they’d – mark you. Draw – blood. I could. Make you. Lick the blood off. Clean the wound. Until – until your mouth was. Smeared. With – your own blood.’

Jared’s hand has crept up to his chest. The images that Richard conjures so haltingly – some of them whisper to him _You know us, you made us. O lord,_ he thinks _, thou hast searched me and known me, thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off._ Did he – when he took Richard, did he transmit his most terrifying, fevered imaginings to him? And what are these new writhing phantasms spilling from his prince’s brain, that will live now forever in Jared’s? He doesn’t know what his prince has discovered, what he’s confessing, it’s too much, how can he, what is this terrible, glorious door Richard is opening, is pulling Jared through, this veil he insists on lifting?

‘And when you are bound’, says Richard, ‘I could’, he swallows and his hand reaches out to Jared’s face, ‘use your mouth.’ His thumb brushes Jared’s mouth, slipping inside as Jared gasps, ‘as much as – all day, if I wanted. You couldn’t. Stop me. I could – oh, Jared, the things I could do.’

Jared can’t speak, the images crowding too thick for him to even think. Richard’s thumb is prying, insistently, at his mouth, over his teeth, rubbing across his bottom lip. Jared can only hear, distantly, Richard’s voice continuing ‘It – you couldn’t – you wouldn’t be – responsible. If you were bound, Jared. What you. Permitted. What you. Agreed to. It - ’

And then it sinks in. Jared shakes his head. Dislodges Richard’s thumb and speaks, over his prince’s whine of protest, ‘Agreed to what, my prince?’

Richard is silent. Jared stares at him. ‘What would you try to urge, while you abused my weakness and debased yourself?’

Richard’s making a vexed sound. ‘What am I - ’

‘My prince’, says Jared, the tears rising in his eyes, let them, let them, his prince is terrified by his tears, ‘my prince, I am mortal, and my burthens are – they are graver than many. I bear them as best as I can, and sometimes I slip, or I lay the weight down, and the fault is mine and mine alone, but you, my prince, when you would seek to – to weave this web for me of my own flesh, oh, you may catch me, but don’t you see, you trap yourself as well. My prince, my prince, you seek glory and power for your kingdom, and that is proper and right, but you must – you must find another way to – persuade me, or to remove me. You must not – my prince, you have but one soul and, and you imperil it too heedlessly.’

Richard is silent, but with a coiled fretfulness that suggests he’s only waiting for Jared to stop talking. ‘Jared. What I said. Do you – want – that? Any of that?’

‘ _I must not have what I want_ ’, says Jared. ‘My prince, I am weak, unworthy I know, but you gave me this task, and I must perform it as best as I can. I must – _protect_ you – as best as I can, from my…curse, and your – willingness – to use it. I – these – temptations – what you – I cannot. I must not. You cannot offer me these – you cannot offer me what I want.’

And he is horrified at his own profligate, impolitic honesty. His prince – his beautiful, shining prince – is his enemy, or at the very least someone who should be given information with care and economy. What good does it do for Jared to confirm Richard’s uncharacteristically acute intuition?

All he has done, in effect, is to admit weakness and throw himself upon his prince’s mercy. He can only hope that his prince heeds him and unbends.

Richard is staring at Jared. After a long moment, he nods.

‘I cannot offer you what you want’, he says, and it seems as though he’s saying it to himself. ‘But’, and his gaze turns inwards, speculative, ‘I can. _Deny_ you. What you want.’

Jared gazes at his prince. ‘What do you mean, my prince?’

Richard is standing up. His fingers are twitching, a little restlessly, and he is staring a little to the side of Jared’s head. Jared’s seen that look before. Richard is staring at some strange, complex, intricate web and he’s found its beating heart, the string he can pull to unravel it.

Richard licks his lips. ‘It – I. You’re right.’ He seems to come to himself, staring very directly at Jared. Jared takes a step back, involuntarily. Richard’s eyes are shining, and he looks terrified and excited. ‘You – you need to be. Punished.’

Jared blinks. ‘Punished, my prince?’

‘Yes’, says Richard. He’s speaking rapidly now, a man who knows the shape of what he wants to say but is snatching for the nearest words to hand, ‘you. You did this. To me. You. Your – you took me with you. Dragged me down. Made me. _Defiled_ me.’

Jared shuts his eyes. ‘I – my prince, I - ’

‘Stop it’, says Richard. His breath is coming faster now. ‘No, I don’t want to hear your – excuses. Jared, I’m not – like you.’

Jared winces. ‘I know, my prince, I’m so - ’

‘ _Stop talking_ ’, says Richard. ‘I don’t – share your – perversion, Jared.’

Jared knows, he knows. In all the time he has known his prince, his lusts have always been…abstract. General rather than particular. The issue of perversion – of Jared’s terrible burthen – simply never arose.

Until now.

Richard continues ‘I’ve never – thought these things, before. Wanted them. Dreamt them.’

Jared wrings his hands. This is everything – everything – that he feared, and Richard, his beautiful pale pure prince, what terrors, what agonies must rack him, and what can Jared do, what can he offer when his very presence is compact of foulness, when the air is pregnant with unspeakable hungers?

‘My prince, let me - ’ Jared takes in a shuddering breath, steps away, falls to his knees, ‘will you let me pray for you, my prince? I would do anything, my prince, _anything_ to spare you this, please - ’

‘Spare me’, says Richard, his eyes hot on Jared’s, ‘spare me _what_ , your _Grace_? Spare me your – scruples, your protestations, your _disobedience_?’ He bends over Jared, breath fanning over his face, ‘Is it – do you – when you defy me, when you – wring your hands, when you say ‘oh no, I can’t, I couldn’t possibly’, when you vex me, when you _tease_ me, Jared, is it – do you know that you can – debauch me, and I will – that you can….take from me what you need? Is that it?’

‘No, my prince’, whispers Jared, head shaking desperately, ‘I – ahhhh.’

Richard has pushed a trembling hand through Jared’s hair and pulled his head back. ‘Do you – presume – on this – power that you have, Jared? On having…ensorcelled…your sovereign?’

Jared thrusts away the shameful flood of pride he feels, oh if it were true, if it were true… ‘My prince, please, you can, we can fight this, we’, he swallows, ‘you are – free – to, to satisfy your desires, you have - ’

‘Free’, spits Richard, fingers tightening in Jared’s hair, ‘Jared, I. am not. _Like_ you. I cannot. S-spend myself on some _pageboy_. No’, and he bends closer, ‘this… all of this…is because I have been too – lenient – with you. With your – disobedience. Your – _wanton_ disobedience.’

Richard straightens, his fingers still in Jared’s hair. ‘You must – I’ll have to teach you, Jared.’

Jared looks up at him. Richard gives him a quick grin, terrified but determined. ‘You have – a duty of obedience – to your sovereign, Jared.’

‘After - ’

‘Yes’, says Richard. ‘after God, I know. But’ he is staring at Jared, ‘in earthly matters?’

Jared licks his lips. ‘I – I owe you my obedience, my prince.’

Richard grins again. ‘So’, he says, ‘prove it.’

Jared frowns. ‘How, my prince?’

Richard’s hand slips away from Jared’s hair. He motions for Jared to rise. ‘Fetch me’, he says, ‘something. From – from the vestry.’

Jared is about to ask why when his eyes meet Richard’s. He swallows. There is something there – perilous and wonderful, that makes Jared shiver. And in earthly matters, it is true, he does owe his sovereign his obedience. He nods, slowly, and Richard’s look of relief is not lost on him.

Jared goes down to the vestry. When he returns to his chambers, he finds that Richard is no longer by the fire. Instead – and Jared’s heart lurches when he discovers this – Richard is sitting in Jared’s own private chapel, in front of his little altar.

He springs to his feet as Jared enters. ‘What did you bring me, Jared?’

Jared extends a hand, in which reposes a small vial of holy oil. He waits for Richard to take it from him, eyes lowered.

When he risks a glance at his prince, he shivers at the look of exultation on Richard’s face. He doesn’t know why that’s the item he has chosen to bring back to his prince, but oh, oh he’s glad he did.

‘Good’, says Richard. ‘So – so good.’

Jared keeps his eyes discreetly gazing downwards, the better to conceal the glow that spreads across him at his prince’s praise.

There’s a moment of silence then. Jared can tell that his prince is pacing, nerving himself to speak. When he does speak, it is pugnaciously, with his fingers twitching by his sides. ‘Take – take off your clothes.’

Jared’s eyes fly to Richard’s. Richard is squirming as he stands, eyes darting in his face. Finally, with evident difficulty, he meets Jared’s gaze. He is staring at Jared as though Jared is everything he most wants and most fears.

The way, Jared, supposes, that he is looking at Richard.

‘My prince?’, says Jared, on a whisper.

Richard’s face crumples. ‘It – oh God, Jared, I, I’m so, don’t, I don’t know what, please - ’

Jared puts up a hand, and Richard quiets immediately. Quiets and stills.

‘Is this’, says Jared, speaking carefully, ‘part of my punishment, my prince?’

Richard’s eyes widen. Slowly, he nods, and Jared nods back.

Jared takes off his robe. The cool of the air in the chapel makes him shiver, a little, but he keeps his arms by his sides. If Richard needs to see him bare, presumably he needs to see him whole.

He hears a shaking, indrawn breath, and risks raising his eyes. Richard’s eyes are skittering over him with feverish, famished urgency, as though he doesn’t know where to look first. It takes him three tries to speak, and the words when they come sound painful, as though they have been wrung from him. ‘So…. _beautiful_.’

Jared feels the heat everywhere in his blood. What madness, what strange demons visit his prince, and how low, what a base creature Jared is, to rejoice in his delirium, to even – profit – from it.

He lowers his gaze again – he thinks that’s…best, somehow, it doesn’t feel right to stare at his prince, not when he is being taught…obedience, the proper submissiveness to his earthly lord.

He feels his prince come closer.

‘Jared?’, says Richard. ‘I…I want you to… lie down.’

‘On my back or on my knees, my prince?’

An audible swallow. ‘Your – your back.’

Jared lies down.

‘Pull – pull up your knees, Jared.’

Jared does so.

‘And – and now’, says Richard, and there it is again, the fierce rumbling lurch of a man mortally terrified of what he is about to say, ‘I – I want you to – touch yourself. Where – where you – touched me. Where you – I want you to – prepare. Yourself.’

Jared’s head rolls against the stone so that he can look at Richard. Richard whose face is mottled, whose lips are bitten scarlet, whose eyes are huge and wide and terrified and hurting and wanting.

Richard flinches as Jared’s eyes meet his. He licks his lips and stares at Jared in mute appeal.

Jared says ‘Could I have the oil, my prince?’

There is a moment of silence, a trembling, wavering quiet, and then Richard says, on a rushing outward breath, ‘Oh thank you, thank you, _thank_ you Jared’, and the oil is pressed into Jared’s hand.

Jared pours the oil onto his fingers, rubbing lightly to warm them. He cants his hips up a little, so that he can reach himself. He notes his prince’s sharp breath, but cannot look at him, if he does, he’ll shatter, this is – his punishment, his lesson in obedience, he is listening, he is in all things a good student, a good servant, he will not raise his eyes higher than they should go.

‘Would you like me to’, he coughs, ‘go slowly, my prince? Or – roughly?’

A shuddering gasp, and the sound of Richard shuffling nearer. ‘I – slowly. The way you – when you were – lonely.’

Jared cannot stop the smile that touches his lips. Lonely? He was _always_ lonely, has accepted that particular aching cavernous hurt as a spur to look inwards and upwards. But ‘slowly’. Yes. That he can do.

The cold from the stone is leaching into his bones. Good, thinks Jared, good, the discomfort is…something to hold on to, some ballast of pain to this strange, shifting, terrible pleasure.

His finger circles his rim. Delicately, almost…ticklish. He flirts with himself, brushing backwards and forwards, holding back, making himself want it so badly he can…content himself with the knowledge that it is his own finger and not his prince’s.

Still, when he breaches himself, he can’t stifle the gasp that escapes him. It’s been…so long…since he was touched there, it’s…

And then there are trembling fingers on his knees, and Jared closes his eyes as he feels his prince’s hot breath against his thigh as Richard pries his legs apart.

‘Keep’, says his prince, ‘keep going.’

Jared does. He probes, circles, retreats. Teases his rim again, a delicate brush.

‘You look’, says his prince, in a rapt murmur, ‘if you knew how you look, Jared.’

Jared shivers. He looks – abandoned, he thinks. Splayed out with his prince kneeling between his legs as he fingers himself. Returning, now, with holy oil coating two of his fingers, to scissor and widen his own hole, breathing sharply as he finds that one infallible place inside himself…

‘Oh Jesu, Jesu, Jared…’

Three fingers now, faster, faster…

And then Jared squawks as Richard’s fingers close around his wrist.

‘No’, says his prince, and Jared can feel the short, harsh puffs of breath against his knee. ‘No. No, you don’t – you don’t s- spend, Jared. Until I – say you may.’

Oh.

 _Oh_.

‘Do you understand?’

Jared nods, shakily.

‘Good’, says his prince. ‘Good.’

And Jared smiles again, reaching towards his prince’s praise.

Then Richard shuffles back and says ‘On – I want you on your knees, Jared.’

And Jared turns.

‘Knees – apart, Jared.’

And Jared shuffles his knees apart. He allows himself to arch his back just so. Presenting himself. Is rewarded for his presumption by a moan from his prince, by trembling, hot hands on his arse.

‘God’, whispers Richard. ‘How are you – you’re so…’

Jared closes his eyes. Lowers his head. Please, he thinks, please…

He doesn’t think he’s said it out loud, but something about his posture must give him away, because Richard’s hands tighten, nails digging into the meat of Jared’s buttocks.

‘Tell me’, says Richard, ‘Jared, tell me what you want.’

Jared expels his breath on a long, shivering breath. ‘My prince, I…’

‘Tell me’, says Richard, crowding between Jared’s legs, shoving briefly, obscenely, against his arse, ‘I can’t – I need you to tell me.’

‘Take me’, whispers Jared, ‘oh, Richard, I want you to – please, Richard, _please_.’

Richard swears, and moves away. Jared’s about to protest when he hears Richard fumbling at his breeches, and then his prince is back, rubbing violently, desperately against his buttocks, cock snagging against his hole, fingers biting into his hips.

Jared can’t help the cry that escapes him, can’t stop himself from chasing that sweet friction.

‘Look at you,’ pants Richard, kneading hungrily at Jared, ‘open, leaking, begging for my cock. Like a – like a Cheapside _trollop_.’

Jared shivers, ducks his head. Rocks back against the cockhead pressed against his clenching hole.

‘What.. would they say, holy Father’, says Richard, and oh, the excited, malicious triumph in his voice, ‘what would they say if they could see you now?’

And oh, what if they could? Jared’s sexton, his chaplain, his entire synod could walk in now, and what would it matter? With Richard’s sweet, inexpert, desperate touch, with the pleasure he could give and receive?

‘God’, he gasps, allowing himself to push back, to nudge, to savour the groan he elicits from Richard, ‘God sees all, my prince.’

‘Yes’, says Richard, with a dark gleam, ‘Let’s – let’s hope so.’

And he lines himself up and pushes in.

‘ _Thou hast beset me behind and before’_ , thinks Jared, as the first shock of pleasure spears through him.

‘Oh Jesu, Jared’, chants Richard. ‘So – God, God, how are you – so, fuck, so good.’

_And laid thine hand upon me._

‘Such a’, gasps his prince, ‘my perfect – oh God, Jared – my own s-slut. So – God, God, God – so beautiful.’

Jared moans, clenches. Richard’s fingers tighten on Jared’s hips until he whimpers, with the pain and pleasure.

Richard’s hips speed up, and Jared rocks back into each thrust, more, more, _more_.

‘Hold’, pants Richard, and then his fingers are in Jared’s hair, ‘I – Jared, I’ and then his hips are slapping against Jared’s, and Jared’s riding him, urging him on with every clutch at his prince, all he can muster, and he can feel the first hot spurt inside him and sighs with pleasure, gasping out loud as his prince pulls out, rubbing his cock against Jared’s pouting hole as he finishes, hot gouts of his seed on Jared’s buttocks and thighs.

There is a silence, afterwards, as Jared tries to collect himself, his neglected cock aching and leaking against his thigh. He smells – he reeks – unmistakeably, of seed, of what they’ve done. His cock throbs at the thought.

When Jared risks a look over his shoulder, he sees Richard staring at him, winded, with his curls sticking to his damp forehead.

Jared shivers. The urge to gather his prince in his arms, to lick up the pearls of sweat lining his beautiful fevered brow, to kiss away the terror and the longing on his face, is…

But then he recalls himself, and scrambles to his feet.

‘Jared.’ And Richard’s hands are on his thighs, staying him. ‘What – what’s the matter?’

He’s looking stricken. Jared can’t resist the temptation to touch his hand, soothingly.

‘It’s Vespers, my prince. I have to perform the service. I need to - ’ he gestures down to himself, ‘may I – my prince, may I -?’

Richard considers Jared’s arousal, and then looks up at Jared, his eyes very dark. ‘No.’

And every nerve in Jared’s body jolts into being.

‘Oh‘, he whispers.

This, then – this terrible, profane gift – this is what he will offer to his Maker. His heaving, unslaked desire, pressing on him, setting every vein alight, taken in hand, mastered, directed upwards and outwards.

‘I understand’, says Jared, and bows his head. ‘I – I submit, my prince.’

Richard grins, a tight, feral grin.

‘Still’, says Jared, ‘I need to – wash, and - ’

‘No’, says Richard, immediately. His nails dig into Jared’s thighs, and Jared gasps. ‘No. I – I want you to –‘ and his hands move up, pressing into Jared’s buttocks, smearing his spend further, deeper into Jared’s skin, thumbs pressing against Jared’s pouting, well-used hole.

Jared shivers. ‘My prince, I - ’

‘Keep it’, mutters Richard, moving closer, breath hot against Jared’s cock, ‘I – you promised you’d obey me. You promised.’

‘I did’, says Jared, forming the words with some difficulty, Richard’s rubbing his beard against Jared’s cock, and oh, oh, oh this is violent, this is cruel, this is exquisite, ‘but my prince – oh, oh, Richard, please, I, if the others were to see your - your release on me, to – to smell, it - ’

‘What, Jared?’, says Richard, nuzzling at Jared’s cock, ‘what is it?’

Jared closes his eyes. Wills away the fog of _please more want_. There is one way to avoid anyone else finding out. 'I – will _you_ – dress me, my prince? For Vespers?’

Richard raises his head to stare at Jared. Nods slowly. ‘You’ll – you’ll have to show me. What to do.’

Jared nods back. ‘You’ll – obey me, my prince?’

Richard shuts his eyes. Shivers, delicately. ‘I’ll obey.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm using the King James version of the Bible for Psalm 139, which is obviously.....fully 400 years later than my vague imaginings for the setting of this story. I am truly sorry.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard's making Jared wait for orgasm.  
> He really hasn't bargained for how long Jared can wait.

_Deus, in adiutorium meum intende._

O God, come to my assistance.

 _Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina_.

Lord, make haste to help me.

Jared can feel the rhythms - familiar and powerful - build in him. Can feel his own snaking, coiled, parched self gather. The want, the heat in his belly is consuming and urgent, it licks away his skin, leaving him naked and open. To the gazes of his brothers. To the cool of the evening. To the rasp of the paper under his fingers. All harsh. All unbearable. All to be borne.

  

He takes himself - his perennial, questing, unmet longing, his confusion, his doubt - and offers them up. His gift is himself, his dominion over himself. It may be a poor gift, but it is an honest one, the truest that he has. He submits. He proffers himself.

_Suscepit Israel, puerum suum, recordatus misericordiae suae_

He hath holpen his servant Israel, for he hath remembered his promise of mercy.

 

Jared thinks sometimes - quietly, blasphemously - that mercy is not what he needs. Not mercy, but rather to be seen. For his bloody-knuckled hands to be examined, for his chin to be raised, and for a hand to pass over his forehead with a whispered 'I see thy gift, my son'.

The pinpricks of sweat, then, the excruciating chafe of his heavy robes against his poor, sensitive, neglected manhood, the screaming in his veins - they will be seen.

Richard, he thinks, has seen them.

Richard will be proud of him.

And surely his Maker, too, will be proud.

As the _Magnificat_ comes to a close with 'Amen', Jared collects himself, piece by piece. Conscious, now, of the weight he carries.

His prince is waiting for him in the vestry. His eyes are very dark, his fingers twitching. He tugs away Jared's sceptre. Presses an eager, rough hand to the front of his robe, running nervous fingers over Jared's rapidly-hardening cock.

'My prince', gasps Jared.

Richard raises his head to look at Jared. 'Do you want to', he says, and licks his lips, 'ask me? If you can. If you can spend?'

Jared stares at Richard. My gift, he thinks, I can offer a greater prize.

'When you say I may, my prince', he whispers. 'When I have...deserved it.'

Richard gazes for a very long moment at Jared before lifting himself off abruptly. He strips Jared with reasonable efficiency. His hands do not linger, his fumbles are due only to inexperience.

He stays, of course, for supper. The monks are nervous about their exalted visitor, but Jared assures them they need not be. Richard never notices what he eats. The plain fare at their table is probably better suited to Richard's indifferent palate and delicate constitution than the constant stultifying stream of venison and grouse at the palace.

Richard's chambers, too, are comfortable but not opulent, and reasonably close to Jared's cell.

Before Compline, there is a knock at Jared's door. Richard slips in, his eyes gleaming in the lamplight.

'You need to - deliver a service', he says.

Jared nods.

'I should - clean you up', says Richard.

Jared is surprised - surprised and grateful. 'My prince, that isn't necessary. I only need...permission...from you, and I will wash myself. I - '

Richard darts forward, balls the washcloth in his hands. 'I'll do it', he says.

He does, slopping the water about, making rather more of a mess than necessary. Jared remembers Richard telling him that he wasn't a very good squire.

Richard tosses away the cloth and Jared turns. 'My prince, is - ahhhh.'

Because Richard has pressed his mouth to the back of Jared's thigh, and his tongue is darting out - nervously, somehow, Jared can feel it - licking away his own release. Uneven, inexpert, but still bent on its task.

Jared gasps, leans forward against the wall for support, tries to regulate his breathing as he feels his cock stir.

Richard's tongue tickles the back of Jared's thighs, higher, higher until it reaches the crease of his buttocks. Jared is holding his breath, but that sweet, delicate touch stops.

'Do you want...to ask me if you can spend, Jared?'

Jared breathes in. Breathes out. 'When you say I may, my prince.'

Richard rises. Leaves without a word.

Jared recites Compline. His sleep is unquiet, his cock heavy against his thigh. Every movement brings a new twinge, a new spear of want.

Jared breathes in. Breathes out. His gift is seen, he reminds himself. His gift is valued.

 

At Matins, Lauds and Prime, Richard is nowhere to be seen. Jared has left instructions that he is not to be disturbed. 

At nine in the morning, Jared leads the Terce prayer. To his surprise, he sees Richard's head bent over a hymnbook.

'My prince, I gave orders that you were not to be woken. How - '

He stops. Richard's hair is standing on end and dark circles are scored under his eyes. Never one to care overmuch about his appearance, he looks ruthlessly dishevelled now - as though he slept in his clothes and spent the night tossing fitfully.

'My prince, what's the matter? Was it your bed?'

Richard is staring at Jared, and frowns. 'My bed? Oh. My - yes. Tell them to - can we put a cot in your chambers? I - we should probably - discuss.'

Jared blinks. 'Yes, my prince, but - we can talk now, surely? What would you like to discuss?'

Richard looks at Jared. Steps a little closer. 'I - would. Do you. Want to...?' and his gaze lingers, unmistakeably, between Jared's legs.

Jared's eyes widen, then close as he wills his traitorous body to obey him. You are being tested, he thinks. The value of your gift is being tried.

'When you - '

'Say you may, yes', says Richard. He is looking...vexed, thinks Jared, why, why, surely he's proud, proud of his good servant's obedience, but Richard turns on his heel and walks out. In something perilously close to a flounce. 

Jared doesn't see Richard again until supper, where he picks at his food. That doesn't worry Jared unduly, his prince has always had a small appetite. But he's looking distinctly strained, and Jared resolves to ask him what ails him.

But Richard hunches a shoulder when Jared asks what's wrong. They've moved a cot into Jared's cell, as Richard requested. Jared has explained that the prince works late, well into the night, which has the merit of being true.

Richard fidgets. He says 'you have the night service, don't you?'

Jared, worried, leaves for Compline. He hasn't asked to be...relieved....yet. He can take more, can offer more.

_Nunc dimittis servum tuum, domine, secundum verbum tuum_

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart from thee in peace according to thy word

When Jared returns to his cell, all lamps but one are extinguished. Richard is in his cot. He sits up as Jared slips in, and Jared sees that his chest is bare.

'My prince, are you-'

Richard beckons Jared over. As Jared nears him, Richard puts out a hand.

'Take - take off your robe.'

Jared swallows. Slips his robe off his shoulders. Lets it pool on the floor. Bends to pick it up and fold it.

Richard is watching him, his throat bobbing. When Jared turns back to him, his hands reach out. Fasten on Jared's hips and pull him closer. Jared takes in a sharp breath as Richard leans forward, convulsively rubbing his face against Jared's aching cock.

'Ahhhh', gasps Jared.

Richard looks up, his eyes wild. 'Do you want. Jared, do you?'

And oh, Jared wants. He wants so desperately. His prince, so beautiful and reckless, waiting for him, naked and hungry, his beard chafing so exquisitely against Jared. He wants. He wants.

He wets his lips. 'When - when you - say I may, my prince.'

'My God', says Richard, almost soundlessly, 'yes, _yes_ , damn you, yes, Jared. In me.'

He throws the covers off, and yes, yes, his prince is naked. Naked and so - oh his prince must be in pain, his beautiful slender cock is curving against his belly.

Richard pulls at Jared's hand, violently. 'Jared.'

He turns, dragging Jared's hand down to his arse. Jared's eyes follow his hand down, down, down, to that pale frame, gleaming in the moonlight. Gasps out loud with his prince as his fingers graze his hole.

Richard winces, and Jared bends closer.

'Richard? Who - who did this to you?'

Richard's poor hole is red and chafed. Someone has been - abusing his prince, using him roughly, disrespectfully, cruelly, and Jared is sick of jealousy and despair and a quiet, murderous rage.

'My prince, who did this?'

Jared will kill them. This is not in question. He will find them and he will teach them, meticulously, exhaustively, of the consequences of _lese-majeste_. Of anything other than whispering, tender, profound adoration of the royal person. Of Richard.

Richard's head turns to Jared. His eyes are shining, tears forming at the corners. 'I - I did.'

'What? My prince, why-'

'You made me _wait',_ says his prince, and the tears begin to spill, 'I was - I watched you, all day, and you were - it was - I couldn't, I was _aching_ , Jared, I couldn't bear it, I-'

'Shhhh', says Jared, gathering his prince in his arms, rocking him protectively against his chest, 'darling, why didn't you ask me? I would have ....relieved you, my prince, I would have...'

'No!', his prince says, muffled but urgent, curly head moving against Jared's chest, 'it had to be - you had to - want it, Jared, it wouldn't, I couldn't, I tried but it wouldn't, I couldn't, and you, you were so...pale, so pure, it was like...I couldn't...like nothing could touch you, like a saint. I thought I would - God, I thought I'd go mad, it was...like you'd never...like you'd never let me...like I'd imagined it all, and you...how do you, how could you?'

Jared smooths his hand down his prince's flank. Richard's chest is heaving against his, his breath coming in hiccupping sobs. 'Shhhh, darling, shhhh, I have you, let me, let me...'

He puts his hand on Richard's hard, leaking cock, and Richard gasps. 'Jared. _Jared_.'

'I wanted your permission, sweetheart', says Jared into Richard's hair. 'I was...obeying you.'

Richard's panting into Jared's chest, hot, wet puffs. 'You looked...oh, Jared, Jared, oh God, Jared, do you...'

'I am accustomed, my prince', says Jared, lips against his prince's ear, 'to...doing without. To...wanting what I...must not have.' His hand is speeding up, his prince is thrusting into his hand, he drags his lips across Richard's cheekbone, down to his sweet red bitten mouth 'to wanting _you_ , my prince.'

Richard convulses, spilling hot and wet into Jared's hand, and against his belly. Jared strokes him through his release, catching his shuddering groans in his mouth.

As Richard collects himself, shaking in Jared's arms,  Jared pets his hair, brushing soft kisses against his damp brow. When he thinks his prince has come to himself, Jared makes to pull away.

Richard clutches at him. 'Where-'

'Rest, my prince', says Jared, placing a kiss on his knuckles. He gasps as Richard's hands twist in his, clasping him.

'You - I - you're not-'

'Oh', says Jared, looking down at himself. 'I - you needn't -'

'In me', says Richard, his voice beginning to rise, 'Jared.'

Jared stares at Richard. 'My prince, but, you're -'

'Jared', says Richard. 'In. Me.'

Jared swallows. He pushes Richard, gently, onto his knees. He bends over his prince.

Richard fumbles under his pillow. Thrusts the holy oil behind him.

Jared holds his breath. Takes the vial. Pours the oil onto his fingers and rubs them together to warm them. Trails his index finger gently down Richard's back. Feels his prince's skin leap under his touch. Feels his shudder as Jared circles his hole.

'Ja-red...'

'I need to...open you up, my prince', says Jared. He is brimming, brimming with want and hope and a terrifying tenderness. 'I need to get you ready. Let me...oh, let me care for you, my prince, let me, let me.'

'Jared...'

'Shhhh, darling', says Jared. 'I'll give you everything, sweetheart, everything. But I need to....you hurt yourself, love, I need to....'

And while he speaks he brushes, lightly, carefully, to and fro, around, up and down, while Richard shivers and his shoulders relax.

Jared bends closer. Lets one hand fall to the cot over Richard's, fingers beginning to twist in the sheets. Richard's knees part a little, giving Jared better access. Jared slides just the tip of one finger in, relishing his prince's delighted noise.

Gently, he explores. Retreats. Probes a little deeper. Smiles at Richard's satisfied purr.

He is careful, very careful. He has to be, Richard he knows is rough with himself.

 

Already he is beginning to wriggle, push back a little against Jared's finger. 'Jared...'

'Wait, love', says Jared.

'Jared, I...'

Jared presses, once, hard, against Richard's rim. Surprises a little gasp of pain from his importunate prince.

'I'll come to you, my prince', he promises. 'I will. But I have to...you're so tight, darling, so sore, I need to...'

And he bends and soothes the hurt with a kiss.

He closes his eyes at the gasp of shocked pleasure he hears.

'Jared.'

And Jared wants to hear that sound again, so he licks - a long, leisurely trawl - between his prince's pale cheeks.

'Ahhhhhh.'

And again, and again. Lightly, now, around Richard's rim. Across his hole, tracing little arabesques, figures, runes neither could explain, symbols never to be repeated.

And Richard - oh, Richard rocks back against Jared's face, he hoists his little rump higher, and the sweet little cries he utters - oh, if Jared could drink them up he would ask for nothing more.

When Jared lifts his face away from his prince's slick, pouting hole, he knows his cheeks and chin are wet, Richard's buttocks and thighs are glistening, and Richard is writhing against the sheets, hard again and leaking.

'Jared. Jared, Jesu, Jared, God, God, your mouth, your- ahhhh.'

Jared has thrust in two fingers. So easily they sink in, down to the knuckle. Jared takes in a breath as he strokes inside, shivering at the way his prince clenches at him. At the wet sound his fingers make as they enter and leave that pink hole, so reluctant to relinquish them.

'Look at you', he whispers. 'Oh, Richard, darling, how - oh, how _hungry_ you are.'

Richard turns his head. Looks at him, eyes glazed with want. 'I -', he says. 'Please.'

Jared bends. Presses a kiss to that beautiful rear end. Scissors his fingers as Richard's head falls forward. Watches his prince's head move restlessly against the pillow, chasing the touch of his fingers as they widen, depart, return.

Three now. Jared thinks...no, he _knows_ Richard deserves the attention.

'Jared', keens Richard, 'Oh God, Jared, please, please, you said, you promised, please.'

 

Jared hums as he continues. As his prince clenches at him, ruts after his fingers. Reaches out a hand on his hip to stay him.

'Wait, love', he says. 'I'm just...'

'You...have to', groans Richard, wriggling under Jared, 'Jared, please, now, more.'

Jared withdraws his hand from Richard's hip. Reaches for the oil. Coats his own cock. Their last time had been....a shock, he thinks, to both his prince and himself. Now, he insists on being gentler. More careful.

Richard is getting restless, rutting after Jared, squeezing on thin air.

'Jared', he grits, 'you promised, I'm ready, I - ah -aaahhhhh.'

Jared's pushed in, and Richard's emitted the most delicious, the most obscene sound Jared has ever heard. It's a breathy, high-pitched little gasp. He sounds - shocked, affronted, almost - that anything in the world could give him so much pleasure without him knowing of it. He sounds...bested, broken.

Oh, Jared wants to hear that sound again.

So he withdraws, from that velvety darkness holding on to his cock so desperately, and rocks back in, just a little. Hears that sweet, wrecked 'aahhahhnnh?' again. Leans forward. Puts more weight behind himself and begins to feed Richard more. Short, small thrusts, relishing Richard's whimpers, the helpless bob of his sweet prince's cock. Smoother, longer, feeling Richard's shuddering moans with his skin, gasping as they vibrate through his prince's slender frame and to Jared's cock. Shorter again, but faster, watching his prince's knuckles turn white as he fists the sheets.

'Please', gasps Richard.

'Please...what, darling?' Jared's a little out of breath himself.

Richard shakes his head helplessly, he's writhing beneath Jared now, he's close, Jared can feel it, he can feel those exquisite little ripples squeezing him. 'Jared.'

'Yes, Richard, yes, I - oh.'

Richard has clenched vehemently on Jared's cock, and it is - oh, oh God, it is....

 

Jared's brain goes entirely blank for a moment, and when he comes to himself he realises that his hips are snapping, that he has lifted Richard onto his cock so that he can have at him, and Richard is clawing at the sheets and biting the pillow, his arse milking Jared. One convulsive final spasm, and Jared realises that Richard is spending, and he goes over the edge moments after.

He cannot resist thrusting a little into Richard in the aftermath, to punch those tiny stammering cries out of him. Afterwards, he collapses against his prince, chest heaving. Richard turns his head to him, clearly trying for a kiss but with nowhere near the faculties to achieve it. Instead he contents himself with mouthing slackly at Jared's chin.

 

Jared tilts Richard's chin up. Presses a kiss to his prince's mouth. Feels his sweet smile against his lips.

'Are you...'

'Yes', sighs Richard. 'So....so good.'

Jared glows.

'Are you....'

Jared nods. Richard smiles happily at him.

'So....loose', says Richard, slurring his words a little.

Jared feels a little conscience-stricken. 'I-'

'S'good', says Richard, his eyes half-lidded. 'Like...' He giggles, 'like....your spend could come out of me.'

Jared lifts Richard, just a little, enough to test the hypothesis, and indeed there's a little, just a little, of Jared's release, dripping out of Richard's slick hole.

The two of them shudder at the sight, at the feeling of it. It's....obscene, beautiful. Jared bends, his mouth to Richard's pouting, glistening, well-used hole. He licks and sucks and laps at his release, until his overstimulated prince begins to sob and shake. Then he allows himself to brush his fingers through those riotous, absurd curls before whispering 'Good night'.

Richard - still quaking, still tender - puts out his hand. 'Stay.'

Jared holds that slim, clever hand. 'There isn't - my prince, there isn't room.'

'Stay.'

And so Jared does.

 Just before Jared goes to sleep, he feels his prince's touch on his hand.

'You waited', whispers his prince.

'Yes.'

'Because I..told you to.'

'Of course, my prince.'

'What _are_ you', says Richard, and the wonder in his voice makes Jared thrill.

'I am your servant', says Jared, because it is true.

'After God', says Richard, but he softens the blow by lifting Jared's knuckles to his lips.

And so, arm thrown protectively about his prince, Jared finds his rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough timings for prayers are as follows:  
> Vespers are roughly at six p.m.  
> Supper is at seven.  
> Compline is at nine.  
> Matins are at midnight or thereabouts.  
> Lauds are at three a.m.  
> Prime are at six a.m.
> 
> Also, as part apology for the turgid prose of this chapter: if you want to read a vastly superior Jared Dunn/ Richard Hendricks orgasm delay fic, might I recommend the lovely joycecarolnotes' 'What I Get Given'?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His prince, in all the time that Jared has known him, has never been troubled overmuch by the demands of his body. Or rather, he eats and sleeps when it is apparent that he must, and always with an air of being imposed upon by an untrustworthy servant. But otherwise? He has always seemed impatient, contemptuous of other men's weakness. His contempt coming not from the pride of having overcome one's own failings, but the incomprehension belonging solely to true innocence. Jared has never thought his prince capable of the lusts that bedevil him. It was just one of the privileges enjoyed by his brilliant, impatient, petulant sovereign.
> 
> So Jared is not entirely sure what to make of the inquisitive, famished changeling in his bed.

Jared excuses himself from Matins, Lauds and Prime the following day. He says he is feeling unwell. His brothers take one look at his shaking frame, the colour high on his cheeks and the sweat on his brow, and suggest that he be excused from prayers all day.

Jared agrees. He is ashamed of his deceit, but when he goes back to his cell and Richard springs from the bed to receive him....well, he cannot be altogether sorry.

His prince, in all the time that Jared has known him, has never been troubled overmuch by the demands of his body. Or rather, he eats and sleeps when it is apparent that he must, and always with an air of being imposed upon by an untrustworthy servant. But otherwise? He has always seemed impatient, contemptuous of other men's weakness. His contempt coming not from the pride of having overcome one's own failings, but the incomprehension belonging solely to true innocence. Jared has never thought his prince capable of the lusts that bedevil him. It was just one of the privileges enjoyed by his brilliant, impatient, petulant sovereign.

So Jared is not entirely sure what to make of the inquisitive, famished changeling in his bed.

Over the course of the night, Richard had turned so that his face was buried in Jared's chest. He had stirred when Jared moved, looking up into Jared's face. His eyes had widened, his lips parting in a smile of such incredulous joy that Jared's heart had leapt.

When Jared had tried to leave to ready himself for Matins, Richard's arm had tightened involuntarily about him.

'Where -'

'Matins, my prince. I must-'

Richard's arm had tightened further. 'Stay.'

'My prince, I - ahh.'

Richard had burrowed in closer to Jared, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses on his chest. Jared had raised his hand to try to push his prince away, but had found himself toying with his curls instead, closing his eyes at the soft, pleased sound he made, at the sound of his heart hammering under Richard's lips and tongue, at the rasp of Richard's beard against his skin.

'I have', he had said, reluctantly, 'darling, I have to, they'll - oh - they'll wonder where I am, they - oh, _Richard_.'

Richard had said nothing. Fastened his teeth on Jared's nipple. A little too much, Jared had thought. A little too wet. A little too violent, as though Richard wanted to tear the flesh off.

Perhaps he did.

Jared had found himself shuddering at the thought, gasping with pleasure, throwing his head back, feeling Richard blush and smile against his skin.

'I have to -' Jared had said, and he had wriggled out from beneath his prince.

Richard had sat up, flushed and stricken and beautiful. 'What-'

Jared had bent forward and kissed Richard's lips. 'Soon, love. Soon.'

And now he's back, and Richard - oh, his darling boy is shining like the sun, if Jared had a tongue for verse or the brush of a painter he would praise his prince as he should be praised, but alas he has neither, and it seems, as his prince sighs and trembles beneath him, that his poor profane blasphemous odes are all that are required of him.

And - while Jared will not taint his brothers' chaste and stainless prayer with his own too-corporeal pollution - he recognises, in his limpid, shining prince, the need - the opportunity - for worship.

So Jared worships, with hands, with lips, with tongue and teeth, with skin and whispers, he worships while his brothers worship, and inside his head he joins them in the _Te Deum_ as Matins close.

_Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi cæli et univérsae potestátes._

To thee all angels call aloud; the heavens and all the powers of the universe.

So he thinks as he rests Richard's fine ankle on his shoulder, as he mouths at the arch of his foot, as Richard's head falls back against the pillow.

_Tibi Chérubim et Séraphim incessábili voce proclámant._

To thee the Cherubim and Seraphim incessantly proclaim.

And Jared bends to swallow Richard's helpless little cries into his own mouth.

 _Sanctus_ , he thinks as he licks his way down Richard's body,

 _Sanctus_ , as he parts his prince's thighs,

 _Sanctus_ , as he takes Richard's hand and places it on his head,

 _Sanctus_ , as he swallows down his prince's cock, as he holds his bucking hips in place, as Richard's trembling hand guides his head, as Jared's mouth floods with the royal seed.

Afterwards, lips and chin sticky and glistening, he looks along the length of Richard's flushed body and asks 'My prince?'

Richard raises his head to look at him. His chest is heaving, his eyes are very dark and he seems to have difficulty forming words. After quite some time he manages 'Y-yes, Jared?'

'My prince, may I spend?'

Richard's eyes widen, impossibly. And then he is sitting up and tugging violently at Jared's shoulder until Jared lifts himself up. Then Richard is kissing him - or rather, panting into his mouth - and groping frantically for Jared's cock.

'M - my prince', gasps Jared, tearing his lips away, 'you needn't - I - '

' _Please_ ', says Richard, urgently, 'I - please.'

His fingers, hot and a little clammy, close on Jared's cock. He's - rougher - than Jared likes usually, too fast, too frantic, as though he's racing for Jared to fall over, to join him in release. But Jared watches his prince, intent on his task, his tongue peeping out between his lips like a schoolboy bent over his Latin grammar, and the sight is so intolerably beautiful, at once innocent and wanton, that Jared finds himself convulsing, spilling into his prince's fist.

He feels Richard's gaze on him and turns his head to meet it. His prince looks...rapt. Still. Utterly engrossed.

'You look', he murmurs, and he seems to be striving with himself, 'Jared, you - '

And Jared bends to kiss his prince just as Richard is raising his fingers to lick Jared's spend off them. Jared catches the corner of Richard's mouth and realises that their tastes are commingling, and his sovereign sighs as the same thought seems to come to him.

* * *

At Lauds, Jared is rocking into his prince, and Richard is slamming back against him. His cries are so loud that Jared worries that he'll be heard even over the sounds of prayer, so he claps his hand over Richard's mouth. Richard licks Jared's palm, so hot and greedy that Jared shudders. So Jared puts his finger in Richard's mouth, groaning as Richard's head bobs up and down even as he clenches around Jared's cock. He can still be heard, so Jared feeds him another finger. Then another, then another, and has to grasp his prince's hip as Richard bucks and writhes, chasing both his fingers and his cock.

'Richard, you'll', he gasps, 'darling, you'll - hurt yourself, you - oh, please, love, you - Richard, _Richard_.' 

And Richard spends, nearly folding in half to do it, sobbing and choking around Jared's fingers. And Jared falls forward as he finds his own release, forehead pressed to the back of Richard's neck. After a few moments in which he collects his breathing, he tries to pull out when Richard, flailing feebly, taps the back of his thigh.

'Don't', pants Richard, 'Jared, I - stay. In me. I - if you move I - I'll spend again, I - I can't, I - please. Stay.'

Jared chuckles, weakly. Stays inside his prince longer than he knows he should. 

* * *

Jared is a good student. A good servant. He is loyal and assiduous, well-prepared, self-effacing and discreet. He prides himself on doing what needs to be done, on becoming what he needs to become, quietly, without fuss or friction. If he deserves to be seen, he thinks, he will. It is not for him to grab, to snatch, to feast. It is not only unseemly, it is immoral. It is not Jared's place to take. It is not his function. It, in fact, _impedes_ him to be...away.... from himself. To be lost in his own wants. To glut himself at the trough of his heaving, terrible desires, to inhabit his fleshly prison so sluttishly, so entirely, that he is absent when he is needed. When the good servant, the trusted hand of God and his prince, is needed.

So Jared takes care. He performs his functions meticulously and carefully, in bed and out. He has an eye to his lovers' pleasure, because his sins are not any graver if he is an indifferent partner in the bedchamber. He thinks that he is sensitive, alive to his lovers' needs, to every gasp or sigh. He finds his own release often enough, but not always. It is not his function to take, but to give. To serve.

Surely it is doubly so with his prince. His liege, his sovereign, with his brilliant eyes and his bitten-red lips and his restless hungers. It must be so. It can be no other way.

But - troublingly - Jared finds himself..slipping. He thinks he can forgive himself for riding his prince roughly when he is instructed to do so. He is his prince's servant, and could do no less.

But he finds himself, once, gripping his prince's curls, pulling Richard's head back and up for a kiss. Gripping tightly. Pulling painfully, Richard hisses, and Jared is overcome with remorse even after he feels his prince's cock harden against his thigh.

He finds himself beginning, once, to scream his prince's name as he is face-down on the cot. He recalls himself just in time, grabbing a pillow to muffle his voice , but it's a near-run thing.

He finds himself opening his lips to suck a bruise onto Richard's pale throat, and pulls off just in time, appalled at himself. When he feels Richard's teeth and tongue against his own neck, it is all he can do to lift his prince's head away.

'No, darling', he pants, 'it - they'll see.'

Richard freezes, staring at him. 'Of course', he says, in a cold, pinched voice, and turns his back on Jared. Jared places a cautious hand on his prince's back, but Richard only hunches his shoulder violently. So Jared, puzzled and bereft, creeps away to his own cot. He lies, staring at the wall of his cell, wondering what has gone wrong and whether he should try to mend it.

He has just decided that it is probably best for both of them that Richard has come to his senses, when he hears soft footsteps. Richard has come to his cot, dragging his blanket behind him, looking so lost and forlorn that Jared's heart breaks. He finds himself sitting up, reaching out a hand before he knows what he's doing, and Richard's face crumples. He drops onto Jared's cot, covering their bodies with his blanket, and Jared's arms come around him.

After a while, Richard's head lifts. His prince's eyes are on him, so searching and intent that Jared's heart begins to speed. He does not know what his prince wants of him, knows that there is little enough that he would not give, but he fears it, fears this quiet, this waiting expectancy that would draw him from himself. He thinks that if he can offer his prince something else, perhaps that terrifying, weighty gaze might waver. So his hands stroke down Richard's back, down to the swell of his arse. Richard gasps and his eyes flutter shut. And Jared feels it - the lifting of that unspoken demand. A temporary reprieve.

But still he finds himself slipping away, racing out of his own grasp and into Richard's. At Prime, he discovers that as their cocks are sliding together, he is biting down hard on Richard's thin shoulder.

'My prince', he gasps in horror, 'I'm so sorry, please, I - mmmph!'

Because Richard has reached up, fingers in Jared's hair, and dragged his head down to his shoulder, holding him in place as he grinds against Jared.

' _Mmmn_ ', whimpers Jared, mouthing feverishly at the muscle and skin beneath him.

And as he spills, his teeth sink in deep, and ' _Yes_ ' hisses his prince.

And Jared sobs helplessly at the savage triumph in his voice.

* * *

They manage to get some sleep, waking shortly after Sext. Time enough for Jared to beg some bread and cheese for Richard, and to have the carriage readied to take him back to London before it gets too dark to travel.

Before then, Jared sits with Richard in his chambers. Richard squirms a little, in his seat, and when Jared remembers what makes him so uncomfortable, the thought casts him into a soft glow from which he needs to nip the inside of his own wrist to make himself emerge.

'My prince, I...I may be able to....discuss your war with their Graces of Essex and Northumberland.'

Richard's eyes fly to his. 'You'd - have you changed your mind?'

Jared shakes his head.

'You'll - lift your edict?'

Jared shakes his head again. 'But I may be able to talk with them - individually. Persuade them that they are...above...or apart from...the edict. That they owe you their fealty, and that God will... smile upon them.'

Richard frowns and then leans back, his eyes narrowing. Slowly, he says 'What - what do you need from me, holy Father?'

Jared winces a little at the question, but responds steadily enough: 'You - threatened us - with a tax, earlier, your majesty.'

'Threatened!'

'Threatened', says Jared. 'I - would find it easier - to...negotiate...with their Graces if I were less.... concerned about the tax.'

Richard watches him. At length he says 'I could just...take the money. From your bishops.'

Jared's eyes rise to meet Richard's. He's calm, inside, and still. He's done this before, with princes and dukes and cardinals, on Richard's behalf. The mechanics are comfortingly similar when his adversary is his prince himself. He says 'You could, of course.'

Richard's mouth twitches. 'So, I can...buy Essex and Northumberland from you?'

Jared winces a little, but what Richard says is fair, if brutally put. 'If you like.'

Richard watches him, and then nods. 'Very well.'

'Thank you, my prince.'

Richard is still considering him. 'This...compromise...with your conscience, Jared...'

Jared shrugs, more violently than he means to. He wants to change the subject. 'I want...I do not intend to...I want to be of...service, your majesty, howsoever I can. I -'

'Does it', says Richard, leaning forward, 'Jared, does it - pain you? To...prevaricate? To - to half-lie? To...'

Jared looks down at his hands. He says, in a whisper, 'I can take it.'

There is a long silence before Richard says, so quietly that Jared has to bend to hear him: 'I'm - I'm sorry, Jared.'

And then he rises, swiftly, and Jared follows him down to the stables where the carriage is being readied.

 

'Travel safely, my prince', says Jared. As a matter of course, he bends to give him the kiss of peace, but curses himself as his lips brush Richard's, frozen and staring.

Richard returns the kiss mechanically and pulls away, his eyes wild on Jared's. Jared is about to turn and walk away as fast as he can without actually running, when Richard says in a strangled voice 'Tell - leave us. I would - speak to your master.'

Jared's heart is beating very fast in his chest, but he makes his voice as even as he can when he repeats Richard's order.

Richard scrambles into the carriage. 'Get in', he says.

Jared gets in, smoothing his hands over his thighs. 'My prince, I - I'm sorry, it's - customary, it would have excited remark if we hadn't, I'm so - _ahhh_.'

Richard has reached blindly for Jared's hand, clasping it in his. ' _Come with me_.'

Jared stares uncomprehendingly at his prince. 'Come.... where, my prince?'

Richard clicks his tongue in impatience. 'To London. Come with me.'

Jared blinks. 'To...why, my prince?'

'My _God_ ', says Richard. 'Jared, are you really - why do you _think_?'

Jared meets Richard's gaze, and finds himself blushing scarlet. 'I...oh.'

'Come with me', says Richard, blushing himself and grinning, a wavering, tentative twist of his lips that Jared wants to swallow into himself, 'I have - my bed's bigger, Jared. The walls are..thicker, we - I want to...let me _learn_ you, Jared. T- teach me. What. Pleases you. Let - God, let me hear you.'

Jared ducks his head, he's so hot he thinks he might catch fire. 'My prince, please - '

'You're so', Richard continues as if he hasn't heard Jared, 'you're so..quiet. Even when you - it's so - I listen for your - your sounds, I think _let me have it, I want it, it's mine, I earned it_. But you never - let me, Jared, I want to hear you, I - I think about it, let me, let me...'

Jared takes in a deep, shaking breath. 'My prince, I - you know why I - we can't, it's - '

'Somewhere else then', says Richard, 'we'll - we'll go up North somewhere. We can - just the two of us. Just - anything we want, we can, it's - '

'No, my prince,' says Jared desperately, his prince doesn't mean to be cruel he knows, but it is cruel, all the same, to whisper such fantasies, such bewitching torments into Jared's ears when he knows, he _must_ know, that they can't, they _can't_. 'Please, it's - it's too much, you know we can't, I will - you think me absurd, I know, and weak, and I am, but I - you gave me a duty, and I cannot - I have a duty, my prince, and I must perform it, as well, however...absurdly....as I can.'

Richard is sitting back, watching Jared. He leans forward, and there's that smile again, excited, dark and malicious, 'You offered. To talk to Essex and Northumberland.'

Jared frowns. He can't quite see where this is leading. 'Yes.'

'You... _suggested_ it.'

'Yes.'

'Even though you know you would be...an accessory...to the war.'

Jared winces. Swallows. 'Yes.'

'Because you - think the - consequences - would be best that way.'

Jared nods.

'Demosthenes.'

Jared wrinkles his forehead before he understands. 'Yes. Our...actions are to be judged in the light of the final issue.'

'Very well', says Richard, and he leans forward. 'Suck my cock.'

Jared jolts. 'M- my prince?'

'Suck my cock', says Richard, 'and I'll - I won't go to war.'

Jared stares at Richard. 'What - you can't - '

'I won't', says Richard. 'If you - drop down. Onto your knees. And.' He blushes. 'You know.'

Jared puts his hands up. 'I - my prince, I don't understand. what - what would -' he blushes, 'that - have to do with -'

'Your actions', says Richard, 'are to be. Judged. In the light of the final issue. So -' he takes in a breath, keeping his eyes on Jared's, 'do this. And. This is the. Issue you. This is the best issue, so...'

And Jared understands. He swallows, reaches for his anger, finds it ready to hand, to use when he most needs it. He says 'If I were still your Chancellor, my prince, I would - advise you - that you were making a poor bargain.'

Richard's eyes lift to Jared's. 'I - disagree.' His lips curl in a small, secretive smile. 'You've - I've _had_ your mouth before, Jared.'

Jared blushes, violently. Wills himself to be calm. 'You wouldn't - want me - on those terms, my prince.'

Richard laughs, a brief, hacking laugh. 'Wouldn't I.'

'My prince', says Jared, allowing his anger to rise, 'if you insist on mocking my faith - '

'I do', says Richard, immediately, and then swallows. 'Not - you, I don't, but - your God, you, you drive yourself and, and torment yourself, and starve yourself, and, and hate yourself, and, Jesu, for what? For - to be allowed to - to lie, and prevaricate, and and shuffle, and compromise?'

'I used to for you', says Jared, fists clenched. 'All the time. Are you - any better?'

' _Yes_ ', says Richard, 'At least I _want_ you.'

Jared recoils. Says 'And - God does not.'

 

Richard's eyes widen. 'No! I - ' he draws in a breath, 'I want - all of you. You - your, your mind _and_ your body. I - you are not - your - none of you is - wrong, or, or sh- shameful. To me.'

Jared sits back. His whole body is alight, his veins bubbling. His hands, he realises, are clasped to his chest, and - oh, oh, he's crying. 'My prince, I - '

'Come with me', says Richard. He's blushing, and smiling, and his eyes keep darting away from Jared's. But his tone is earnest, and when he finally manages to glance at Jared he sees that his prince's eyes are shining.

There's a timid knock at the carriage door, and then a voice speaks. 'Your Grace? Your Majesty? It's - it's before it gets dark, we must - '

'Of course', says Jared, and commends himself on how still his voice is. 'Be well, my prince.' He leans forward and allows himself the indulgence of a kiss, and another, and another. Finally, before another knock comes, he gets out of the carriage and watches his prince drive away.

Tomorrow, he knows, he will have to reckon with his prince's blasphemous pride in his sin, his sin and Jared's.

Tomorrow, he will rebuke himself for the smile that he cannot will from his lips.

Tomorrow. 


	9. Chapter 9

Jared doesn't hear from Richard for the next three months.

He goes about his duties. He has a difficult line to walk, meeting with Essex and Northumberland in secret, assuring them that their duties to the Crown need not be at odds to their duties to God, no matter what his own pronouncements may be. He flatters them, he coaxes and wheedles, but he cannot raise them too high, let them think they are altogether separate, apart entirely from Jared's commandments. What if one day his God needs their Graces' obedience?

Jared can feel the weight of his prevarications heavy on his tongue. He takes it, he holds it up high, as far as his aching arms will allow.  _I do this for you_ , he thinks, and realises that he scarcely knows to whom he speaks, who it is he hopes will hear and respond.

Jared's God is demanding. So is Jared's prince. There is comfort in it, there is purpose. Being driven is almost like being needed. Being driven is almost like being held. Being driven is almost like being loved.

And what is demanded of Jared, but his silence. His service. The holding of his fists by his side.

So Jared serves, in silence. He watches himself. He does not ask after his prince or reach out for him. He puts his hands to work. He prays.

It is only in the quiet of his cell that he indulges himself, for even pain is an indulgence. His prince, his beautiful shining prince, his thin lips, his nervous clever fingers, is he sleeping, is he eating, does he think of Jared, even now, now, if Jared were to take himself in hand now, could he make his fingers remember his prince's touch, make them perform the same sweet frantic sarabande, could he transmit his want to Richard somehow, could Richard, would Richard know, could Jared's eager hunger teach Richard to touch himself as Jared would touch him, to worship as Jared would worship, could he slip into his prince's skin and his prince into his?

Jared watches himself. Jared hears himself. He gives himself audience. One of his functions, after all, is to hear confession. And after he confesses, after he vouchsafes his riving, terrible hungers, he wills himself to be empty, to be free and clear.

Sometimes he even goes to sleep with dry eyes.

 

* * *

 

He thinks that he is coming to an accommodation with himself, that the wound is developing a scab. But then he hears these words:

‘Your Grace, it’s the King.’

‘The King? Are you certain?’

The chaplain nods. ‘He came mounted and alone, but I am sure it is he.’

And his heart - his stupid, hopeful. selfish heart - leaps, and he knows that the peace that he thought that he had won for himself was nothing more than an armistice.

Richard walks into the room with hurried, jerky step. 'Leave us' he says, staring at the floor - unnecessarily, since the chaplain has already shut the door.

There is a long silence while Jared indulges himself with a long, long look at his prince. He's paler, thinner, impossibly thinner, and Jared's stomach knots. Is he, is he ill,what has he been doing, where, how, who, who cares for him, whom does he permit, what do they do, what can Jared offer, what can he counsel, it is not his place, but Richard,  _Richard_.

He's in front of Richard before he knows what he's doing, hands on his shoulders. 'My prince, let me - let me look at you.'

Richard takes in a breath. Holds it. Raises his face to Jared's.

And Jared realises the mistake he's made.

Jared wants, he wants, he wants so desperately, all he is, all that he seems capable of, is hunger. He is helpless in the face of it, an automaton in its grasp. 

It is terrifying. It is liberating. It is beautiful.

He is not under his own power anymore. He cannot direct himself, cannot restrain himself, cannot even entirely recollect himself. Richard kisses him first, or he Richard, it scarcely seems to matter. 

When his fingers are roving helplessly over that narrow, inexpressibly lovely face, it scarcely seems to matter. When he meets the curve of his cheek, the flutter of those tender, fragile eyelashes, the impatient twist of that hungry red mouth, it scarcely seems to matter.

When Richard is raining kisses - sweet, short, desperate, clinging to the surface of his skin - wherever he can reach, it scarcely seems to matter.

When his hands slam into those slender hips, it scarcely seems to matter.

When Richard knits his ankles at the small of Jared's back to urge him on, it scarcely seems to matter.

When Richard plucks impatiently at his robes and mutters 'Off,  _off'_ , it scarcely seems to matter.

it scarcely seems to matter that Jared's hands are shaking, that he doesn't know where to begin, to declare himself, to possess and be possessed. It doesn't matter, because Richard is pushing him onto his back, on the unforgiving stone of the floor.

It doesn't matter, because Richard is rubbing his face eagerly against his cock - yes, yes, thinks Jared, arching, yes, Richard likes to do that, he likes to - it's as though he wants to assure himself that it's still there, still there and wanting him, and yes, yes, Richard, like that, yes, it is, it is, it is.

It doesn't matter, because Richard is crawling up Jared's body, because he's swallowed Jared's finger, and the heat of it, the unspeakable tropic heat of it, Jared feeds him another, and another, and another, and when Richard lets go Jared trails slowly down the curve of Richard's spine, like a traveller cresting a hill to look down upon his homeland. When he breaches Richard he lets himself in, bashfully, slowly, softly, learning Richard anew, like an ineffably beloved country whose tongue Jared must shape again with his lips, Richard's sighs, his shudders, his contractions and releases, the grammar of his rise and fall, his declensions, his conjugations.

It doesn't matter who began it, who struck first, not when Richard is lowering himself, inch by wonderful, excruciating inch, onto his cock.

It doesn't matter who began it - though Jared knows he will later be horrified at himself - when Jared is forcing his thumb and index finger into Richard's scarlet mouth, when Richard is tasting himself on Jared's fingers, when his moans vibrate through Jared. 

It doesn't matter, when Richard's scrabbling at Jared's chest, when his thin thighs are squeezing Jared, so hard that Jared knows he will carry great purple marks tomorrow, and will have to strive with himself for the sin of pride, when he's riding Jared so hard that Jared has to hold on for dear life.

It doesn't matter when Jared feels his prince clench at him, so deep, so fiercely, oh if Richard could absorb Jared, if Jared could inhabit his prince, if he could share him with himself, if he need never be apart from him again, what more, what else could he...

And Jared spends, hard and long, inside his prince. His prince who grins down at him triumphantly before following.

Richard topples onto Jared's chest, lips pushing weakly against his neck. Jared's arms twine about his prince, and they fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

When Jared opens his eyes, he sees Richard staring at him. 

'I sent your chaplain away' says Richard, before he can speak. 'You- you're excused. From prayers. I said', Richard swallows, 'I said we had - work - to do.'

Jared says nothing. Passes his tongue over his lips. Watches Richard's eyes flick to his. 'Work, my prince?'

Richard hunches a shoulder. 'We don't - who knows when we'll next have the opportunity.'

Jared's chest squeezes. 'My prince, I - '

'Who knows', says Richard, 'how long you'll make me  _wait_.'

And he's crouching down in front of Jared suddenly, eyes wild on Jared's face. 'Three months. Three  _months_?'

'My prince', whispers Jared, 'you must - '

'I  _hate_  you', says Richard, and Jared recoils at the conviction in his voice. 'I - Christ, was it - was it  _nothing_  to you? Is this - how can you - '

'My prince', says Jared, 'please, you can't, you must know - oh, darling, I longed - I  _long_  - for you, I - but it's so, I've wanted for so long, I ached, but I - '

'Ached', says Richard, with an ugly little laugh, 'You don't - don't know the  _meaning_  of the word.'

And his fingers are holding Jared's jaw, tightly, face breaths away from Richard's. 

'If I hadn't - come for you', says Richard, 'would we ever - ?'

Would they ever - ? How long could Jared have waited, when would he have broken? Jared's eyes fall, and he feels Richard nod, tightly. 'I thought so.'

'Richard', says Jared, looking up, 'please, I - '

'You left me', says Richard, 'And I - I came for you, Jared. You - you took me, you - you showed me, you let me, you made me think you, that you, you kissed me, and then you sent me away.' And Richard looks away, biting his lip. 'And here I've - come for you again.'

'My prince', says Jared, 'this is unjust, you sent me away first, I wasn't - '

'Is it rich', interrupts Richard, 'is it, do you, is it amusing to you, Jared? To know that I'll, I'll come  _crawling_  for you?'

Jared's shaking, this is too much, this painful piercing joy, 'No, my prince, you mistake, I - '

'It must be', says Richard, 'to know that you're - better. Than this. A-above. Above me. That - that I'll always - break first. That I can't - if I - try, I'll..that you can - do without. Without me.'

'No, my prince, please', and Jared reaches for Richard, and his prince shivers before wrenching himself away, violently.

‘No!’ he says, ‘no! that’s – that’s why, isn’t it, that’s how, you – you give, and, and that’s how you can. You – provide. You, you don’t – need.’

Jared provides? Of course he does, that is his function, he was put on this earth to tend, he knows this. To serve.

‘No’, says Richard again, ‘no, I – not again. You don’t – stay. Above this. Jared, you. You have to. I won’t be the only one to – ‘ he takes in a long breath. ‘Hands. On the floor.’

Jared’s eyes fly to his prince’s. Slowly, he lowers his hands, palms down, on to the floor.

‘Good’, says Richard, and Jared’s eyes flutter shut at the praise.

He feels his prince kneel down between his legs, then a rustling sound. When Jared opens his eyes, Richard is balling up his cape, with jerky movements. His eyes meet Jared’s and he gives Jared a bright, hectic half-grin. 'Lie - lie down.'

Jared swallows, and does as he's bid.

Richard kneels forward. ‘Lift – lift your hips.’

Jared does, and feels the silk shoved beneath him. His hips are tilted forward and up. He's on display, he realises.

He feels Richard’s breath, hot and wet, on the inside of his thighs. Feels the brush of that curly head as it descends. Gasps at the warm tickle of Richard’s tongue against his hole.

‘R-Richard! I –‘

And there’s a warning nip at his buttock. ‘You’re - you’ll take, Jared. Take – this. Let me. Give you this.’

Jared pushes himself up, mindful to keep his hands on the floor, what is Richard doing, he has to – ‘My prince, you mustn’t – I can’t – I can’t allow – ahh!’

Richard’s dug his nails into the flesh of Jared’s thighs. He’s biting his nails again, oh, Richard – ‘Allow?’

Jared shakes his head. ‘My prince, it’s – it’s unclean, you’ll, I cannot permit you –‘

Richard’s staring at Jared narrowly. ‘You – you’ve done it. For me.’

‘Yes’, says Jared, ‘Of course.’

And of course he has, Richard’s slender, perfect body, anything, how could he think that the two are - This is absurd. How can Richard compare the care he has been privileged to offer him, with his own reckless, profligate debasement of his own beautiful person?

‘My prince’, says Jared, ‘we’re – it’s clearly – you cannot compare the cases, it’s –‘

‘And – and the others?’, says Richard, his voice cracking, ‘Were they less – when you – permitted them to – that you – ‘

Jared blinks, what a peculiar question. ‘There was – nobody else, my prince. This is – my prince, you must see – ‘

Richard’s leaned forward. ‘I’m –  _nobody_  else?’

Jared shakes his head.

Richard swallows. ‘I’m – I’m your first?’

Jared takes in a breath. ‘I – my prince, I cannot - ’

And he gasps as Richard slaps his palm on his chest. ‘ _Lie down_.’

Jared’s eyes meet Richard’s, glittering fiercely, and his heart is hammering against his prince’s palm, he must feel it, oh, he must, because when next he speaks his tone is gentler, pleading almost, ‘Jared. Lie down.’

Slowly, Jared lowers himself onto his back. He keeps his palms on the floor.

Richard’s fingers flit delicately on the inside of Jared’s thighs, up and down. Jittery, but trying their best to…gentle Jared, soothe him. ‘I’ll be’, he murmurs, so softly that Jared can barely hear him, ‘it’ll be – you’ll see, Jared, you’ll – ‘and he presses a kiss, with open mouth, near Jared’s knee. He trails those thin, bitten lips down, down, down, licking, tentative and sweet.

Richard continues his travels, with lips and tongue, his fingers tracing, seeming to tremble with the effort of resting and stroking rather than tearing at the flesh under him, and Jared wants to urge him on, deeper, rougher, but it’s so – Jared’s not accustomed to this, to the simple act of receiving, of being tended to, he’s unsure of the rules, is it his place to speak, is it too, and he can feel it, feel himself beginning to melt, it’s sweet, it’s perilous, and he croaks ‘Richard- ahhh.’

Because Richard’s pressed a kiss to his hole. And the shock of it, the obscene delight of it, leaves Jared bereft of breath.

His prince busies himself, trailing his lips around Jared's rim, flicking his tongue up, down, gingerly, uncertain but determined, pressing his long sharp nose to the join of Jared's thighs, kittenishly inquisitive, as though Jared's a rare and exquisite fruit unveiled just for him. When he skims his tongue across Jared's hole, Jared whimpers, he can't help it, it's so terrifyingly, abominably, deliciously intimate, he can feel his eyes sting.

'Richard', he whispers.

Richard hums against his hole, and Jared can feel the vibrations at once, everywhere. He throws his head back and gasps, it's, oh God, it's..

His prince curls in closer, the flat of his tongue warm and wet, possessive, seeking, probing, and Jared can feel himself clenching on thin air, pulling at Richard, he can feel himself slip away, reach for his prince, for that hungry unpractised tongue.

Richard pulls away and says, out of breath, savage, 'Look at you.'

Jared licks his lips, tries to collect himself, lifts his head to look at his flushed prince with those beautiful swollen lips, oh - 

'You can't', says Richard, staring down at Jared, 'can't get  _enough_  of it, Jesu, Jared, you, you're pushing onto my face, you -'

And Jared realises to his horror that it's true, he's lifted his hips off the cushion of Richard's cape, forward, forward onto that sweet avid mouth, oh what must Richard think, he - 

And, cheeks burning, Jared lowers his arse onto the ground, only to yelp as Richard's fingers tighten on his hips.

'Where', he pants, 'where do you - think you're - no. You - stay, Jared. Stay just where - stay, like the greedy little s-slut you are.'

And Jared moans, it's true, what can he say, when he's leaking and hard and rutting against his sweet prince's face, when he's being held in place while Richard lowers his mouth and licks and sips and nuzzles, when he's being racked by the filthy, seeking, wonderful torment of it?

'This is how', says Richard, he hasn't even lifted his head, it's, oh God, Jared can feel him, every word, every breath, 'this is how, Jared. I'm going to - you'll - spend like this, won't you? Spend like a - like the tart you are, like a, without my touching you, I'll, I can, I, Christ, look at you, look at that - that hungry little hole, it's -'

And Richard crowds in closer, impossibly closer, and  _nibbles_  at Jared's hole.

It's - innocent, almost. Richard's innocent, he can be, he hasn't, he hasn't learned his powers, what he can do to a lover and what he can't. And oh God, oh God, who could ever gainsay him, the impatient headlong wanton delight of him?

And Jared cries out, his prince, his bewitching reckless impossible prince, he's licking now to soothe the marks of his teeth, but he, oh, the heat of it, the flashing edge of pain to the pleasure, the abandoned hunger, is Richard trying to eat him, to lick and nibble and taste his way to Jared's centre, his beating heart, and then to, oh Richard,  _it's yours, yours already, you can, you can, more, more,_

Jared thinks he's calling out to Richard, he's babbling, he knows, but it seems to spur Richard on. He moves his hands to get a firmer grip onto Jared's hips, he opens his mouth further, and Jared jolts at the slurping, succulent sounds of his prince taking, taking, feasting, glutting, gorging himself. On Jared. With those wicked little teeth, that warm slippery tongue, peeling Jared like a grape, like Jared is a particular and delectable feast, like Richard's starving, like he'll die if he doesn't eat Jared up, drink up his blood like gravy, crunch his bones between his teeth, lick his trencher clean,

'Please', whimpers Jared, 'please.'

Richard growls against Jared's hole (oh, oh,  _oh_ ) and plunges his tongue in. And Jared arches off the floor, as the muscle flutters around him, around that sweet tongue that has already given Jared so much, so much pleasure, so much pain, so much confusion, such keen excruciating delight. His hips buck, his thighs draw in, he's squeezing his prince's head so hard, oh God, he can't, can't control it, and Richard huffs once, surprised, against Jared's tender skin, but those thin hands stroke up and down Jared's thighs,  _gently_ , they say,  _gently,_ but Jared's head is rolling against the stone of the floor, it's building, the wave, it's inexorable, he'll die if he doesn't, it's - 

And Jared spends, thrashing against Richard's mouth, on a wail so long he collapses, wrung out and near fainting.

Richard crawls up his body, hastily, and kisses him, his eyes, his lips, his nose, everywhere. When Richard lifts his head, his face is wet and Jared reaches for him in concern, only to realise that the tears are not Richard's, but his own.

'Thank you', whispers Richard. 'I - thank you. For. Showing me.'

'I love you', says Jared.

He isn't afraid of saying it. Surely Richard - even Richard - knows.

So he is not prepared for the sharpness of his indrawn breath, for the heaviness of 'That's...that's what I'm afraid of.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again thanks to the lovely @emef for counselling me on a particularly badly-expressed bit of the festival of turgid prose above. If you can remotely understand what either of these two idiots are doing to each other at any point of time, I promise you that is not my doing.


	10. Chapter 10

'That's what I'm afraid of', says Richard.

Jared frowns. Sits up. Afraid? What is there to fear? Surely Richard knows - must know - that Jared would never -  _could_  never - hurt him, or let harm come to him.

He says as much to Richard, and is surprised by a sharp, hysterical laugh.

'You're the  _only_  one who can - Jared, how can you - if I thought I didn't - matter - to you, that I weren't, that I weren't important, then I might - we, this,  _us_ , might - be safe.' Richard fetches a heavy sigh. 'But you say - you say you love me. And I -I  _know_  you, Jared, I know that you - like to do...without.'

He stops, scowling at his knees.

'My prince', says Jared soothingly, how to make sense of this, 'how can -'

'Sacrifice', says Richard. 'You wouldn't - give up anything but the most - it's only a sacrifice if, if, it has to be something you…value, you -'

Jared's about to protest when it hits him. It is true, isn't it, that he doesn't know what to give, how best to worship, to be seen, except to cut out? Cut out his excesses, his indulgences, the parts of him that offend because his love of them tie him, bind him, make him guilty of idolatry? Abraham was asked, after all, to sacrifice his son.

And Richard, his beautiful prince, his own private and exquisite rapture, how can he give himself entirely to his God when his hunger for him is so absolute?

He has seen it before, has tried to excise his wants, to burn them away, but he is not his own anymore, he belongs to Richard, and if he does not belong to himself, on what authority can he offer himself up, how can he empty himself of his creeping skin without amputating his prince?

Jared's eyes fly to Richard, who grimaces. 'I thought so.'

Jared looks away. In many ways, he thinks, this isn't new, he's always known this day would come, and his prince will recover, he has learnt the uses, the possibilities of his own beautiful body, and he does not have Jared's burthen of shame, and Jared will not try to make him shoulder it, let him, oh let him rejoice in his lips and hands and tongue and cock, Jared will answer for it, if he can only -

Jared clears his throat. Says, in as measured a tone as he can contrive, 'My prince, our parting is...inevitable.' Richard twitches, but Jared puts up a hand to silence him. 'It may...vex you to-'

 _'Vex_  me?'

Richard sounds incredulous. Jared sighs, but presses on. 'It may vex you to...go back...but it is only your' and Jared blushes and hurries on 'your body that is...deprived...and not for long, you will -'

'Never', says Richard, and if Jared thrills at the conviction in his voice, he will not blame himself, he can feel the weight of duty so heavy on his tongue, it's a wonder he can speak, 'you will, my prince, your - your heart is not engaged, it is better this-'

'Heart?', says Richard. 'I love you.'

Richard says it defiantly, slapping it down at Jared's feet,  _So there_.

Jared jolts, but breathes calmly. This is a thought experiment, he tells himself, he shouldn't -

'If you did', he says, 'then we -'

'I didn't say  _if_ ', says Richard, 'Jared. I love you.'

And it's there, there, that tone of voice, that makes Jared feel like he's been flung from the battlements of Windsor. There's no tenderness in the tone, no blandishments. This - oh this tone Jared knows well. This is Richard snapping at a vassal who has missed an obvious point. The tone of a schoolmaster to a particularly dull student.  _Come on, come on_ , it says _. Keep up, I told you this before, pay attention_.

If he looks at Richard, he will see the tears - tears of enraged despair at a slothful and inattentive world - begin to form at the corners of his eyes.

And there. There they are.

Jared swallows. His voice, when he speaks, is strange to him. 'M - my prince?'

'I love you', says Richard again. And his tone has the remnants of his earlier peevishness, but also a wavering, growing excitement. As though he's stared at a Greek text and he thinks he knows the translation, thinks he knows the key.

He looks at Jared. 'I love you', he says, his eyes bright with a triumph that makes Jared's heart hammer in his chest.

Jared puts out a hand before he quite knows what he's doing, and Richard seizes it, crawls over to him, presses kiss after kiss to Jared's lips, his chin, the tip of his nose.

'I love you', he says, punctuating his kisses, 'I love you, I love you.'

And Jared knows that tone too. He knows the emphasis of it.  _Jared_ , it says,  _come with me. Jared, you're with me. Jared, you're mine._

And his hands come up, pushing his prince away. 

'What - ' and Richard starts forward again, thin fingers biting into Jared's upper arms, and Jared's hands tighten on Richard's shoulders.

'My prince', he says, speaking as calmly as he can, with his lips still tingling, 'I want you to think.'

Richard huffs a sigh of exasperation. 'What is there to - '

' _Richard_ ', says Jared, and Richard stills, sulkily.

Jared takes in a breath. 'My prince', he says, 'why now?'

Richard frowns. 'Why - why  _what_  now?'

'What has brought on your...', Jared swallows, 'your appetite for me?'

' _Appetite?_ ' Richard is incredulous again. Jared hurries on: 'Why now do you believe you have these...feelings...for me?'

' _Believe?_ ', says Richard. 'Jared, what are you - '

Jared puts out a hand to silence him. 'My prince, you - you said before that you had..seen..the way I look at you. You knew, then, how  _I_....felt. For...some years.' Richard twitches, but Jared goes on. 'Why send me away, have me ordained, make me Archbishop, issue edicts I must disagree with, dispute with me, and then...this?'

Richard hunches a shoulder. 'Why not?'

'My prince', says Jared, softly, insistently. 'Why  _now_? Now, when we are separated, when we can see each other so rarely, when we must sometimes, of necessity, fight? Why did you only see me when we  _were_  fighting? Why  _now_?'

Richard is staring at Jared, a frown between his eyes. Jared nods, and tries for a smile. 'You...do not like to be..refused, my prince. For me to say you nay.'

Richard's still staring. He licks his lips. 'So you think.. I...'

And he looks down, lips tightening. Then he's on Jared, their faces inches apart. 'Are you', says Richard, 'calling me a - a liar, Jared?' And his fingers grope for Jared's chin, 'Or - or a - or a whore?'

Jared shakes his head. 'Neither, my prince.'

'It has to be one', says Richard, and if Jared leans his head back he can see that little patch of white by his prince's nostrils, 'if you're saying we - we swive - so I can -  _what_ , Jared? Do - what?  _Make_  you do - what?'

Oh, and this humour Jared knows. He can't quite tell what it says about him that he..likes it, recognises it, feels safe in it. Jared's hands come up, resting gently, carefully, on Richard's shoulders. His thumbs move, lightly, to and fro, in little circles. He breathes as slowly as he can, watches his prince's shoulders relax, feels his little shiver.

'You see', says Richard, on a breath, so soft that Jared can barely hear him, 'you - Jared, you -  _you_  do this - to  _me_. I can't - God, what - could I - what p-power do you suppose I - ahhhh.'

And Jared can't help it, can't help the colour rise to his cheeks. 'You made me - forget my vows, my prince.'

And Richard's eyes widen, he flushes and a grin of almost intolerable smugness rises to his lips. 'Your vows - are - ridiculous.'

'My prince - ' begins Jared, and Richard shakes his head quickly.

'We can - we don't have to talk about - I didn't mean - '

'I think', says Jared, 'that that we  _do_  need to discuss it. My prince, I am not - doubting your sincerity. I think you…believe what you say. But I also think', and he speaks very calmly here, very gently, 'that you have a - keen sense - of your...possessions.' He smiles. 'It is an admirable thing in a prince.'

Richard's frowning, staring intently at Jared. 'What do you - what does that mean - here?'

'It means', says Jared, 'that you wanted to...reclaim...a possession...when you...when  _we_...' Jared takes a breath. He'd known this would be difficult, but every word feels heavy and sharp, fighting against being framed, 'when we...lay...together. And that...once you confirm that it - that  _I_  - am yours, then...' he tries to smile, again, 'you will not...want me...anymore.' Richard opens his mouth, and Jared shakes his head at him. 'You will realise then, I think, that you...never  _did_...want me.'

Richard has been squirming for some time. 'Are you - have you finished?'

Jared nods, a little shakily. It was - right - to put their position as plainly as he could, but he feels empty now, and very tired.

Richard springs to his feet. Paces up and down. At length, he looks at Jared and sits down opposite him, cross-legged. He glances at Jared from time to time. Constructing an argument, Jared thinks, and cannot hold back his smile. These are the moments when it's hardest to say goodbye, when he's reminded of how much he can actually  _like_  his reckless, brilliant prince, when the fierce biting exaltation of his idolatry is sharpened with affection.

'So', says Richard. He looks up, shoulders straightening. He's smiling a little, at his ease. 'Your...proposition...is that I am...reclaiming...you.'

Jared nods.

'Because you think I - could have -  _we_  could have - before.'

Jared nods again.

'Because you think I - knew you would be - amenable.'

Jared nods, again, but a little more slowly this time.  _Would_  he have been amenable? Is he... _amenable_...now? His tearing, consuming want is hardly the same thing.

Richard leans forward, elbows on his knees. He keeps his eyes on Jared's.

'You assume', he says, 'that I - know - quite a lot.'

Jared licks his lips. 'You - said you knew...how I looked at you, my prince.'

Richard sighs. 'It's - I knew you'd be like - Jared, you don't know - Christ, you don't know what it's like. Loving you, it's - '

'My prince, we haven't - '

'Oh, we haven't', interrupts Richard. 'Because we haven't  _proven_  to your, your  _satisfaction_ , that I love you.'

'My prince - '

'I thought', says Richard, staring at his hands, 'Before, when we were – when you were my Chancellor, I thought that you - I could feel you - looking at me...it's true, I did, but - ' he takes in a great lungful of breath. 'H-having you near. Watching you. Watching - others - with you. They, they liked you, didn't they, Jared, you could - you always.. Thinking of you - bellying with - strangers, I could, I could smell them on you, you  _reeked_ , I didn't, I couldn't tell what it was that made me so, but your fingers, I - I could feel them on my skin, they  _burned_ , I - '

Jared realises his hand has flown to his chest. His cheeks are hot. 'My prince, I - '

'Listen', says Richard, 'please.'

Jared stills.

'I thought', says Richard, 'when we - we sat together - in our councils, when we - looked at plans, and, and campaigns, when we worked together, in the night - I thought,  _we have this. Only - only_ we _have this_.' 

Jared swallows. 'We did.'

Richard raises his eyes. 'I know.' He takes in a breath. 'And I thought:  _this is better_.  _We are- we give each other - this_.  _That is all we_ can _\- this is better_.' He worries at his lower lip. 'But then you - left - '

'You sent me away - '

'...I sent you away’, agrees Richard.

‘Why _did_ you send me away?’, says Jared. ‘If you - ’

Richard’s fists tighten. ‘The Archbishop was dead. You said – _you_ said – that it was an…opportunity – to have someone – sympathetic – in the post.’

‘Why _me_?’

Richard nods. He knows the question is fair. ‘I thought it would be – safer.’

Jared frowns. ‘How? For whom?’

Richard hesitates, looking profoundly guilty. ‘Away…from – other people.’

‘…Which other people?’

Richard’s looking more miserable with every passing moment. ‘The – people you - ’ and he convulsively swallows, ‘you lay with.’

Jared stares at him. Richard squeezes his eyes shut before raising his head to look at Jared. ‘I – I’m sorry.’ His face crumples. ‘Jared, I’m so sorry, it was - ’

Jared puts up a hand. Quietly, he says ‘So you sent me away…put us at odds…made me take an oath of celibacy…lay with me…caused me to _violate_ the oath that you made me take….brought about our current pass…because you didn’t want me – what was your phrase – bellying with strangers?’

Richard’s shivering, but he manages to meet Jared’s eyes and nods, shakily.

‘And this’, Jared says, leaning forward, ‘was your _plan_?’

Richard twitches. Says nothing.

‘Did you ever think’, says Jared, ‘that it might be dangerous?’

Richard frowns, puzzled. ‘Danger - ’

‘To lock me up’, continues Jared, measuring out the words icily, precisely, ‘with other men – other men labouring under nothing but vows that you now know, _my prince_ , are as insubstantial as gossamer?’

Richard’s lips are white. His eyes are blazing in his face, but he’s managing to keep still.

‘Have you seen the novices here?’ continues Jared. ‘Soft, soft boys, tender and sweet, eyes turned up to the heavens, long, delicate lashes fluttering against pale downy cheeks – oh, just like yours, my prince – hurrying across the corridors, intent on their devotions. So earnest, so respectful, so _trusting_ of me. Kneeling together, side by side, sharing a hymnbook, gasping quietly as our fingers brush? What then? What then, when I have been exiled and abandoned by my friend, my prince, my only love? What then, in my loneliness and despair? What nooks, what crannies, what crevices and curves and angles might I not take solace in?’

He watches his prince, white as a sheet, eyes so blue and wide and haunted. Should he continue? What does it say about him that he thinks he could? What strange cold satisfaction there is in tormenting Richard, in watching his thoughts roil and rack him, in watching how beautifully he takes it.

‘What sacraments’ Jared purrs, ‘what communion, what entirely new ways to pray could we find? Locked together, alone, discovering each other, reading each other, chapter and verse?’

Even now, chest heaving, fists clenched, lips bitten so hard there’s a little line of blood, Richard hasn’t said anything.

Jared reaches out, loops a stray curl through his finger. Watches Richard’s eyes lower. Feels him relax, lean into his touch. ‘Easy’ murmurs Jared, ‘easy.’

Richard swallows. ‘I – I deserved. That.’

‘You did’, says Jared, gently, but he wants Richard to listen. ‘You deserve for it to be true.’

Richard looks at Jared. Doesn’t so much as flinch. ‘That wasn’t – the worst.’

‘No?’

Richard shakes his head. ‘I thought – that you – that we – we’d still be…together. Working. Together. I – I meant it when I said I – thought you’d be – sympathetic. Christ, Jared, who could be more? The war, our plans, you – you made them possible, I thought – it was… for the Archbishop to be my man, what we could – accomplish, what we could do, together, it wouldn’t – matter – even if, even if you…’ he swallows, ‘took…pleasure…somewhere else…but if we – built something…together…nothing else _mattered_.’

Jared’s watching Richard. ‘Nothing?’

Richard hunches a shoulder, eyes skittering away. ‘I couldn’t think about – about us – doing…lying…together. It wasn’t – ’ he sighs. ‘I never knew…I _couldn’t_ know…it could – feel – like this.’

And he turns his head and looks squarely at Jared, who can feel the colour rise. He says, slowly, ‘But we _weren’t_ building together.’

Richard shakes his head. ‘And you weren't with me anymore, you - you were my - ' he swallows, Adam's apple bobbing, 'my  _enemy_.'

'My prince - '

'You don't know', says Richard, 'you don't know what it's - you're  _you_ , Jared, you don't, you  _can't_  know what it's like to, to need you, and not have you.'

Jared stares at Richard.  _You're wrong,_ he thinks _, I know what it's like. I know what it's like to have need of myself, to summon myself, to call within, and to find myself...wanting._

_Have I not fled my own skin and power when you reach for me? Have I not abandoned myself to reach for you? Am I not composite of all the selves, the promises, the oaths that I have forsworn or abandoned or finessed because I cannot keep one vow without breaking another? Have I not watched myself taking pleasure in your pain?_

'So then', says Richard, 'when I thought I - you were right, before. When you said that I - wanted to - claim you. Keep you. But you weren’t - it _wasn't_ right about the - time. I was - trying - to keep you - then. Before. Before I sent you away. Before you were ordained. Before you were Archbishop. When you were - gone, when you weren't - when you weren't - mine - anymore, it didn't - I thought, well, what if I do...reach? What does it matter?' He looks at Jared, and a little smile touches his lips. 'So you see, your - argument - is..incomplete.'

Jared is gazing at his prince, his heart beating so loudly he can't hear anything else. He cannot muster a counterargument, cannot think, cannot reason. He has never thought - never allowed himself to think - that Richard could want him, could long for him, could fear him, fear _for_ him. The thought is...Jared's hand creeps to his throat, it's..terrifying and glorious and pitiless, like a cliff-edge dropping sheer to the sea, its pull inexorable.

His eyes close as Richard reaches for him.

'I love you', he whispers, his lips shaping the words with shy delight, like a little boy showing off a new toy. 'I love you', as his thin, trembling fingers trace across Jared's lips, falling open for him. 'I love you', as his mouth follows. 'I love you', as he noses at Jared's brow. 'I love you', as he tongues his ear.

 _Such knowledge is too wonderful for me_ , thinks Jared, leaning into that perilous, sweet touch,  _It is high, I cannot attain unto it_.

'My prince', he sighs, helplessly, pushing Richard away - gently, ignoring his whine. 'I cannot - I cannot dispute with you, you - you know my heart, but I - '

'Jared', says Richard, 'do you - love me? Me, truly?'

Jared's eyes fly to Richard's. 'My prince, how can you - '

'Do you?'

'Yes', says Jared, 'of course.'

Richard's lips twist. 'Then stop. This.'

'My prince, listen to me, I - '

'If you want', says Richard, 'to - be finished with me - us - if you don't - want me - anymore, I wouldn’t – I’d understand, I’d, God, I’d _agree_ , but you'll - have to say so, Jared. On - on your own account. You can't… use me - as your stalking horse. You can't - tell me what’s in my - my heart.'

Jared stares at Richard. 'I wasn't - '

'You were', says Richard. 'I - you have to - tell me - what you..want, Jared, I... I don't know these...you have to - ask for it - or say no, but you can't, can't - tell  _me_  - what  _I_  want. Either.'

On Jared's own account?

Say yes or no -  _for himself_?

Of all of the demands his prince has thrown at him - of all the weights he has tossed carelessly at his head - this must be the most grievous, the most onerous.

'My prince, I - '

And he stops, staring helplessly at Richard, who stares back.

'You think', says Richard, 'that you can - hurt yourself - for your..your God, your...whoever it is…and. You're. Trying. To tell yourself. That it's. That the only - pain - to consider. Is your own. That's why - that's why you're - telling yourself - telling  _me_  - this... tale..of what I, I do or don’t feel. Well', and he crouches close to Jared, 'I'm only telling you -  _reminding_  you - that. I'm. Here too. You can' Richard swallows, 'h- hurt me, but you can't - pretend - that I'm, I'm not  _being_. Hurt.'

Jared jolts. Lifts his eyes wonderingly, fearfully, to his prince. 'You're not', he whispers, 'making it easy for me.'

'No', says Richard immediately, 'I'm not.' He crowds in closer to Jared, rubs his face against Jared's throat, nuzzles him. 'I don't intend to, I want to make it - ' and he looks up at Jared, eyes lighting up with the simple pleasure of a simple joke, 'hard.'

And his hand dips down to Jared's cock.

And Jared can feel it, he's slipped his own leash again. His hands shoot out, capturing his prince's wrists. He bears Richard back and down, down, down, until they're flat on the floor, Richard pinned beneath him, hands over his head.

Jared bends his head, nipping at his prince's lips. He mouths at the little blue vein fluttering hectically in Richard's throat. He laps at the tender well between his collarbones. He licks at one nipple, then the other, until they're stiff, glistening with his spit. 

It's only at one particularly strained gasp that he realises, to his horror, that his hold has tightened on Richard's delicate wrists.

'My prince', he says, letting go, 'how could I, let me - '

' _Yes_ ', says Richard, clambering into his lap, 'Christ, Jared, anything, anything, just -  _love me_.'

Jared groans against Richard's chest. 'I do already', he whispers, and covers his prince with his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to the lovely @emef and @ladiesloveduranduran for enduring (even more) garbled versions of the above, and for making them waaayyy better.


	11. Chapter 11

Jared is not prepared for the  _laziness_  of it.

All his life he has kept himself busy, has kept his hands scrabbling and bleeding, has recoiled from sloth. An idle hour is an hour where he is not needed. Not valued. Not seen.

Richard too, he knows, despises rest. His eyes are turned outwards, his mind leaping, soaring, over ciphers and maps and possibilities.

Even when they come together, it is with a purpose, in a tearing, hag-ridden hurry. To snatch and gobble and take, take, take before they come to their senses, before the sun rises and the other must leave.

So Jared thinks it ought to be..unsettling...to lie now as they are. Limbs entwined, tongues tangling languidly together, fingers drifting over skin and hair with no immediate goal but simply to...be. To touch, as fingers and tongues do. To listen for each other's sighs, to play each other's bodies - idly, curiously, with attention but no immediate purpose.

'Do you like this?' says Jared, letting his knuckles press, just a little, into Richard's spine.

'Mmmmm', sighs Richard.

'Let me see', says Jared, and Richard flops onto his stomach. Jared watches him wriggle under his touch, bends down to lick delicately at the base of Richard's spine, smiles at the sounds his prince makes.

Richard reaches out one hand and pulls, gently, at Jared's wrist.

'What's this like?' he asks, letting his fingers run, feather-light, between Jared's.

Jared shivers. 'Wonderful.'

Richard raises himself on his elbow, looking at Jared. 'Is there...?' He hesitates. 'Lie down.'

Jared does, looking up at his prince.

'Is... Is this good?' murmurs Richard, and he bends his head to nibble at Jared's bottom lip.

'Yes', sighs Jared.

'And this?' And Richard licks the tip of Jared's nose.

Jared considers. 'Yes. It's...new. I like it.'

'And this?' And Richard's tongue flicks inside Jared's nostril.

Jared jumps and giggles - giggles, how curious, what an unexpected sound - 'N-no.' And he strokes his prince's arm to soften the blow. 'But since it's you...'

Richard shrugs. He doesn't seem offended. 'I didn't know. Now I do.' He bends his head to Jared's belly, curious and intent. 'What if I do  _this_?'

* * *

 

A luxury, to sit with their legs tangled together, Richard's back against his chest, head resting on his shoulder. Sun-warmed. Pliant. Mouth sweet and shapeless with kissing.

'I used to think about you', says Jared. He's watching Richard's fingers slide through his own. He's feeling weightless, safe, impossibly young.

'What did you think?' asks Richard, tilting his head so he can see Jared.

'I used to wonder how you were. At night, I used to wonder if you were...thinking about me.'

'I was', says Richard immediately. Jared blushes.

'My prince, you don't need to - '

'I used to', Richard licks his lips, turns pink, 't-touch myself.'

Jared's eyes flutter shut. It's too close, too perfect, to think of those long, parched nights, those stupid, hopeful, desperate imaginings, and to have them confirmed, enriched, returned to him with such careless generosity.

'What did you..' he whispers, 'what did you do?'

In answer, Richard picks up Jared's hand and brings it to his collarbone. He takes Jared's fingers, traces them over his chest, lower, lower, lower, until they're encircling his cock.

They both let out a soft, long sigh. Jared watches his hand under Richard's slide up and down his prince's cock, watches his prince's chest rise and fall.

'Is this' he asks, rolling his brow against Richard's, 'is this what it was like?'

He can feel his prince shake his head, violently. 'Not' he gasps, 'not - as good. Not -  _oh God_  - never like this.'

Jared hums, lets his own hand rest a little forcefully under Richard's. 'I wouldn't be so quick' he breathes into Richard's ear. Richard's almost throttling his lovely cock, his sweet prince, his beautiful impatient prince. 'I'd be more...like... _this_.'

And he relaxes his hold on Richard's cock. Lets himself move slowly, almost shyly. Delicately. Flirting, teasing, testing. This rich soft time, this time of infinite leisure, why waste it?

So he lets his lips brush against Richard's brow, gently, chastely. Feels his love's tremors, spins his web carefully, thoughtfully,  _I have you, you're safe, let yourself feel this, savour this as I do you, take pleasure in yourself, in_ me _, let me play you, show me, my darling, show me._

Richard is arching up, great shuddering gasps racking him. 'Jared...'

'Let me', says Jared, brushing his thumb over the head of Richard's cock. Richard gasps, letting his hands fall away to Jared's thighs. 

Jared speeds up, just a little. Opens his mouth against Richard's brow, licks away the little droplets of sweat forming there. 

Richard is wriggling against Jared's chest, and Jared gasps as his own swelling cock rubs against Richard's little backside.

'O-ohhh.'

Richard's nails bite into Jared's thighs, surprising a squawk from Jared. He drags Jared's thighs closer, bracketing his own slender hips. He squirms back against Jared, rubbing purposefully against Jared's cock.

' _Richard._ '

Richard rolls his head on Jared's shoulder, so he's breathing great wet puffs against Jared's neck. 'Want...inside.'

Jared swallows. He's hard now, Richard's excitable little contortions driving him so keenly. 'Darling, are you...'

' _Please._ ' And Richard drags Jared's leg over his. 'I want to feel you... _everywhere_.'

Jared gasps. Steers them both, gently, down, so they're lying on their side. Takes away the hand on Richard's cock, shushes his impatient whine, to probe lightly at his prince. Still so...loose, so open, from what they did before. Jared moans. It will be easy, so deliciously easy, to just...

He slides in, a little, and matches Richard's pleased sigh.

' _Ja...red...._ '

'Mmmmmm' says Jared, snaking one hand beneath Richard. Draping his arm across Richard's chest to pull him in a little closer as he feeds him more. Replaces his other hand on Richard's cock.

Jared wants to keep this slow. Unhurried. Take his pleasure with his prince. But of course Richard has other ideas.

'M-more', he says, trying to push back against Jared. Jared clicks his tongue and tightens his arm around Richard. Keeps him still. And smiles at his prince's whine of displeasure, even as his cock jerks in Jared's hand.

And oh, it's exquisite, to sway into his love, to have his arm wrapped around him and his leg crossing over him.

He feels Richard melt into him. Feels the tickle of his curls. Feels, rather than hears, him sigh.

Jared rocks to and fro, gently pushing, making a home for himself in that snug velvet heat. Keeps his hand moving on the slender length of his prince, leaking now.

Richard's trying, trying so hard to burrow into as much of Jared as he can reach. He's thrusting into Jared's hand, rocking back into Jared as much as he dares, lifting his head up to press wet, eager caresses into Jared's neck or chin.

He's trembling, his eyes screwed shut, as though he's whirling in the embrace of visions. And Jared - oh, Jared wants so desperately to know what he sees. Holding him like this, skin to skin, he's never been more aware that he cannot be his prince, cannot inhabit him. The despair of the thought is inseparable from the joy of loving - is necessary, perhaps.

Still, Jared cannot resist asking: 'How does it feel?'

Richard doesn't answer for a moment, his head moving helplessly against Jared's chest. Jared slows his hand on Richard's cock, just a little, enough to let Richard collect himself. When he answers, it's hoarse: '...Held. S-safe. F-feel  _you_.'

'Good?' asks Jared. He wants to know.

Richard nods vigorously, his curls brushing Jared's chin. Jared groans with him. 'God, God, it's...it's...f-filling...me. Like...ahhh...like you'll..s-stay in m - a-ah, yes, there,  _there_.'

Jared gasps at a determined clench. 'I - I want - to stay. Oh, darling, I wish - '

'Want', pants Richard, 'keep..you. Al- ahh - always.'

And the way that he's snatching at Jared suggests he means it, his abandoned, voracious prince. Richard's hips are beginning to move, a stammering but insistent movement against Jared's.

'Darling', gasps Jared, 'please, you'll...you'll make me spend, I...'

'Want you to', says Richard, straining against Jared's arms, 'Spend...in me. Want to...feel you.'

Jared whimpers, thrusts into Richard, can't help himself. Seemingly emboldened, Richard goes on in that cracked, exalted whisper: 'Want you to...f-fill me till I...I  _run over_. Want you - oh, yes, yes, God,  _more_  - want you  _everywhere_.' And he reaches back, blindly, hand scrabbling on Jared's arse. 

'Closer', he says, 'Never - God - never close enough.'

'No', sobs Jared as his hips move faster, 'never.'

But he tries, he tries, as he pistons in and out of Richard, he strains to reach him, to keep him, to know him, to turn him inside out, to draw him into himself.

And Richard, as he begins to fall over, seems bent on taking Jared with him. He squeezes Jared, and those sharp, exquisite ripples drive Jared mad. His hips snap, meeting Richard's fierce little thrusts. He saws in and out, in and out, and as he feels Richard spasm beneath his fingers, he lets himself go. He floods the royal arse, remembers the startled, broken little cries he'd punched out of Richard before and gives him a few short shallow thrusts. He feels his own and Richard's shiver at the succulent, filthy squelch he makes moving through his own release.

And yes, yes, he's dripping out of his prince. Richard moans as Jared pulls out, rubs a little against Jared's thighs. Marking him. Marking him with his own release, that his beautiful importunate prince has wrung out of him.

He pulls Richard close to him and feathers a kiss to his ear. 'Rest, darling.'

Richard snuggles back against him, boneless and soft. 

 

* * *

 

In the afternoon, Jared slips away to fetch Richard some food. He's so thin, his prince, he never looks after himself, and Jared thinks to his horror that he can't be trusted himself, he's feasted himself on his darling's slender body without giving a thought to his sustenance. Even now, it's so difficult to disentangle himself from those clinging limbs, drowsy and heavy with lovemaking. So difficult to stop at one kiss to that warm rosy shoulder.

Jared goes to the kitchen to beg whatever he can for Richard. He thinks, guiltily, that it's not the first time he's done it, but he hopes the cook will forgive him.

He looks at him, a long, considering stare, and then turns on his heel abruptly. Jared is about to apologise again when he returns with cold pigeon and a large bowl of plums, plump and juicy.

'For you as well, your Grace', he says. 'You're too thin.'

Jared blinks, and then smiles. 'Thank you.'

When he returns, Richard is awake. He snatches at Jared as he comes in, grabbing insistently at his robes with an imperious 'Off, off,  _off_ ' and nearly sends the food flying. Jared has to give him a firm kiss before shoving him away and putting down the plates. He takes off his robes, seats himself and beckons Richard over.

'You must eat, my prince.'

Richard huffs impatiently. 'You're thinner than I am.'

'It's hardly the -' and Jared breaks off at his prince's stare. 'I'll eat too.'

Richard clambers onto his lap and holds a plum to his lips. 'You first.'

Jared sighs in fond exasperation, but takes a bite, smiling as the tartness of the fruit leavens that rich late-summer sweetness.

'Your mouth', whispers Richard, enraptured. He holds the fruit to Jared again, and Jared leans forward. 'Slowly. I want' he coughs, 's-slowly.'

 _Oh_.

Jared opens his mouth, lets his lips drag slowly off Richard's fingers as he places the plum on Jared's tongue. Absorbs Richard's shiver. Passes the fruit around his mouth. Languorously. Voluptuously. 

Richard's eyes are very dark, his breathing fast and uneven. Jared can feel his cock stirring, knows Richard's getting hard too.

'Look at you', says Richard as if in a trance. 'Your  _mouth_ , Christ, do you  _know_ , Jared, do you even know what you do to me?'

Jared can feel his cheeks heating, can feel his eyes beginning to shut.

'Eyes', says Richard, fingers shooting out to grip Jared's jaw. 'Look at me, Jared. Look at me while you ... oh yes,  _yes_ , Christ, lick it, take it all, use your tongue,  _slut_.'

And he freezes in horror, staring at Jared.

'Jared, sweet, I, please, I don't - ahhhhh.'

Jared has pulled Richard forward a little on his lap. Just a little, just enough for Richard to feel the hardening length of him. Over Richard's aching gasp, he slowly, very slowly sticks out his tongue. On which reposes the plum pit. Licked clean, as Richard instructed.

'Jared', breathes Richard. He reaches out a shaking hand and lifts away the pit. Bends his head to suck Jared's tongue. Jared moans, letting his hands stroke down Richard's flanks until they reach that perfect, tiny backside. Jared cups his prince's arse-cheeks. Lets his thumbs slide to his cleft. Swallows Richard's groan.

When Richard lifts his head, he's flushed and panting. He reaches behind Jared for the bowl, and holds another plum to Jared's lips.

Jared holds his prince's gaze as he takes a bite. The plum's overripe, and the juice spurts over Jared's lips and chin. Jared giggles, reaching up to wipe it, but Richard forestalls him. 

His tongue sweeps, flat and hot, against Jared's chin. Jared groans, tilting his head, offering his throat. His prince continues to lick, wet, messy swipes on Jared's chin, his cheeks, over his lips. There's no finesse to it, no elegance, but Jared wants it, he wants that greedy little tongue, wants the beautiful man wriggling in his lap. He opens his mouth and Richard pounces, pointing his tongue to probe at the underside of Jared's top lip.

He sits up, and returns with the plum. 'Finish it.'

Jared does, and he thinks he knows what his prince likes, what performance to give him. He rolls the fruit under his tongue. Lets himself caress the meat of the fruit the way he longs to be allowed for his prince.

He is rewarded with a harsh gasp, and with a breathless, helpless litany from Richard, dragged from him as if he couldn't stop himself if he tried.

'Your tongue, Christ, Jared, what a - oh yes, let it work, yes, yes, like that, you - that mouth, Jared, oh you know, don't you, so sweet, so pure, so perfect, but you know, you know just what you're doing, you little - you filthy little  _whore_.'

Jared whimpers, and Richard draws in. 'Trollop', he breathes, 'my own - my perfect little - my own little  _slut_.' 

Jared gasps. Drags Richard in.

'Jared, what - '

Jared puts his fingers in his mouth. Takes away the pit. Leans forward to let his fingers, his open mouth, graze Richard's throat.

'Ahhhh.'

'Shall I show you, my prince?' whispers Jared. He doesn't know what this is, this lovely strange mood, where he thinks he can laugh, where he can push Richard and be pushed without dealing wounds, without learning something weighty and grave and terrible.

His fingers trail down, down, down Richard's leaping skin, to his red, stiff cock. Richard cries out as Jared touches him.

'Sh-show?'

'A slut' Jared says, against Richard's collarbone. ' _Your_  slut.  _Such_  a slut, my darling. Such a perfect...' and his fingers grasp Richard firmly, surprising a cry out of him, 'hungry little slut.'

And Jared pushes Richard off him and drops to his knees on the floor. There it is, that sweet, ridiculously, absurdly perfect cock. 'Yours, just for you.'

Richard's cock twitches, and Jared doesn't wait for another response. He bends over his prince, and swallows him down.

'A-ah! Jared, Jared.'

Jared pulls off, looking at Richard. 'Eat. Darling, eat, you need to eat. Let me' and he runs the back of his fingertips lightly down Richard's thighs, 'let me serve you while you eat.'

And he bends over his prince's cock. Lets himself play, learn it under his tongue, lick and suck and nuzzle, tracing little promises, little formulae, across the length, humming with contentment as Richard's trembling fingers rest on top of his head. When Richard begins to buck beneath him, Jared moves his hands up to keep his prince's hips in place. 

'Jared. Jared, Jared, sweet, oh God, oh yes, there, there, like that, just like that, take it,  _take it_ , ah-ahhhh, God, you little-'

He can feel it building, can feel Richard's release, and is about to ply his tongue to his slit when he realises that both Richard's hands are in his hair.

He pulls off.

'Wh- _Jared_.'

Jared looks up, and it's as he suspected. The bowl's untouched.

Jared clicks his tongue in reproof and stands up. 'Richard. I told you to eat.'

Richard is staring at Jared incredulously, mouth open. He swallows and says 'If - if you think I - how can anyone do, do  _anything_  when - '

Jared smiles. ‘Darling, you still need to eat.’ He sits down and beckons. ‘Here. I’ll feed you.’

Richard stares at him and then, with a long-suffering sigh, flops down so that his back is to Jared’s chest. His shoulder is hunched and there’s a pettish twist to his lips, but as Jared pulls him closer and strokes his shoulders, he relaxes and melts back against Jared. Wriggles until he's disposed to his own liking.

'You like us this way, my prince?' says Jared, a little amused.

Richard turns his head and looks at Jared, a little crease between his brows. 'Yes, I - ' and a shadow passes over his face. 'Do you...not..what - '

'I love it', Jared says, hastily, 'I only wondered', he blushes, '...what do you like about it?'

Richard's still frowning a little. 'It's...good', he says. 'Safe.' His fingers drift along Jared's thighs. 'Surrounded.'

Ah. Yes, that's what it is. Jared nods, letting one arm encircle his prince's waist, pulling him closer. 'I'll surround you', he says in Richard's ear. 'I'll look after you.'

Richard shivers. 'I love you' he breathes into Jared's neck.

Jared's arm tightens, convulsively. He absorbs his prince's tremor. He thinks one day he might get used to hearing those words, that they won't make him feel a little dizzy. He wonders whether that would be better or worse than now, now where everything feels golden and dreamlike, where he has to tell himself that this is real.

Richard looks up as though he's said the words out loud. ‘I sometimes’ he says and swallows, ‘I think – sometimes I think I…that you’re not real, you’, and he licks his lips, ‘you make me, you’re so…’ he gives up, straining up to kiss whatever part of Jared he can reach.

Jared bends his head so that their lips find each other. They kiss softly, passing breath between each other's mouths. Jared's hand strokes Richard's belly, and Richard's arm comes up around Jared's neck.

When they part, Jared rests his forehead against Richard's. 'You have to', he says, 'darling, you have to eat.'

Richard pouts. 'Very well.' He opens his mouth theatrically wide, pointing his face towards Jared with his eyes screwed shut.

Jared giggles at the absurd creature in his lap. Presses a kiss to his brow quickly and places a plum in his mouth. 'Bite down', he suggests.

Richard does, and the fruit bursts open in his mouth, juice spilling out. Jared makes to withdraw his hand, but Richard nips gently, and Jared stays still. Holds his breath as Richard's tongue weaves between his fingers, as he draws them further in, cheeks hollowing out as he sucks.

' _Richard._ '

Richard moans, and Jared gasps at the sensation. Richard's tongue is licking the pith and meat of the plum off Jared, and that hot mouth is opening, sliding down the length of his fingers, down past his knuckle, tongue flat and greedy against his palm. Jared whimpers as that pink mouth crawls over his hand, licking and biting and sucking, at the obscene little pop his fingers make as they leave and enter again, at the twinge in the pads of his fingers when Richard nibbles at them.

'Rich-ahhhh.'

Richard's eyes drag open. They're very dark, his lids heavy. He looks abandoned, debauched.

'Want...' he whispers. 'Please.'

'What...what do you want, darling?'

Richard shakes his head, helplessly. ' _Want_.'

'Tell me, my prince', says Jared. 'I'll give you everything, everything, just...'

Richard's eyes are shining, tears always come so readily to him. He snatches Jared's fingers and swallows them, sucking on them so feverishly Jared wonders (not for the first time) if his famished prince wants to eat him whole. His tongue swirls around them, hot and wet and utterly filthy. His head bobs up and down, in unmistakeable pantomime, and his eyes shoot open, fixing Jared with a stare so direct Jared can feel himself blushing to his toes.

 _'Wanton'_ , Jared says, entranced. Richard groans around Jared's finger, squirms against Jared's hips.

Pulls off Jared's fingers to croak 'Please?' Grinds against Jared's cock. 'Jared. Please.'

Jared leans his forehead against Richard's. 'Soon.'

'No!', and those curls shake against Jared's forehead. 'Now. Please? Please, Jared.'

Jared takes in a shaking breath. It's so...he wants, so desperately, and his beautiful prince is...offering him everything, is demanding, almost, it's....

'Soon, darling', says Jared, but he lets his hands slide underneath his prince, cupping that tiny backside. Lets his thumbs graze over that slick, waiting hole.

‘Jared’, says Richard, on a breathless whine. ‘Don’t – don’t _tease_.’

‘I’m not’, says Jared, but he rubs his knuckles lightly against his prince’s cleft, just to feel him arch into the touch and moan.

‘Jared’, says Richard, more urgently this time. ‘Please. _Please_.’ And one hand reaches up to pull Jared’s face towards his. ‘You said’, his throat bobs, ‘you said you’d look after me.’

‘Richard’, says Jared reprovingly, ‘darling, that’s not - ’

‘Please, Jared?’ and Richard bites his lip. Looks up at him through his eyelashes. ‘It’s been so _long_.’

‘Richard!’ Oh, his prince is a _minx_. Lying there, his sweet cock red and stiff, his beautiful mouth bitten scarlet, fluttering his eyelids like the little tart he was calling Jared not so long ago. He ought to be ashamed of himself, thinks Jared, delighted. ‘Richard, darling, that’s a naughty lie.’

‘It isn’t’, says Richard, ‘it’s, Jared’, and he wriggles against Jared, surprising a choked gasp out of him, ‘it’s so, I’m _ready_ , Jared.’

‘You see’, pants Jared, ‘that’s – oh, darling, yes, _yes_ – a contr- _aah!_ -contradiction.’ He smiles at Richard. ‘How could you be – oh, _oh_ – ready, when you say it’s been so – oh, _Richard_ – so long?’

‘Pedant’, says Richard, and Jared’s heart leaps as he recognises the tone, ‘it – look’, and he turns his head, momentarily stilling to pursue a point, ‘I could have – prepared myself. Could have’, and he bites his lip thoughtfully, ‘used…my fingers.’ He peers up at Jared again. ‘While I was…waiting for you.’

Jared’s breath catches as he thinks of his prince splayed open, breaching himself with his own slender fingers, driving himself to distraction, to the brink of crisis, so that Jared can take his pleasure on his beautiful body without waiting. Without let or hindrance.

‘Oh’, he whispers.

Richard licks his lips. ‘I – I used to. Sometimes. When I was – I used to try to – pretend. Pretend it was you, I – when it got…bad.’

Jared’s eyes shut, his arms tighten around his prince. ‘I’m here now’ he says, and he means the words as a ward, a shield against harm.

Richard’s hand covers his own. ‘Prove it.’

Jared nods, blindly, against Richard’s forehead. He lifts Richard’s hips and slides into him.

They’re content at first to simply…bathe in each other. To kiss, lazily, to rock gently to and fro. For Richard to lick long sweeps across Jared’s lips, like he’s still chasing the last remnants of the plums. For Jared’s hand to stroke across Richard’s thighs, splayed out over his own.

But soon their touch becomes more heated, the movement of their hips more urgent, their kisses blinder. Soon Richard is slamming down on Jared’s cock and huffing harsh little cries into Jared’s mouth.

Soon Jared empties himself into his prince, and strokes him through his own release.

Soon he gently lifts Richard off him, and smiles as Richard settles back almost immediately, lips against his chest.

It takes them the rest of the day to finish that bowl of plums. Evening finds them sticky and replete and bursting with love.


	12. Chapter 12

_By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not._

Jared comes to himself with a start. He’s fallen asleep, he thinks, asleep as though his time is his own, as though he has nobody to please but himself.

It’s cold beside him. Richard, where has Richard…

Jared rises, looks about his chambers. Goes to his chapel and smiles as he comes upon his prince. Richard’s engrossed, still and pale. He doesn’t hear Jared creep up to watch him, and Jared takes care to stay far enough away that he doesn’t disturb him.

Bent over a book, curls glinting in the candle he’s managed to light. A knife-sharp, singular beauty that makes Jared feel immediately, immensely alone in its contemplation. A privileged loneliness, weighty and loaded with devoirs, with ineffable mysteries.

_Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead._

Richard’s gnawing his lower lip a little, thin fingers resting atop the page. Jared’s seen that look, that intent voracious look. He used to worry – hysterically, inwardly – if Richard would tear the page off, eat it whole in his impatience to get at the essence, the _res_ , to devour it, to ingest its intelligence.

_Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks._

_How much I like you_ , he thinks, _how impossibly dear you are_.

_Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love._

He doesn’t think he’s said the words out loud, but something Richard has certainly heard, or felt. He looks up and catches sight of Jared. He raises his eyebrows at Jared and smiles.

‘You were sleeping,’ he says, and pats the floor beside him. Jared goes to him and sits down. Richard returns to his book and Jared watches him, eyes and hands drifting through his curls.

_As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste._

Richard makes a pleased noise, reaching for Jared’s hand. He uses it to turn a page, absently nibbles on Jared’s finger. No amorousness in his intent, but a matter-of-fact declaration: this is mine, an extension of me, my hand, my finger to nibble at as I would my own. Jared closes his eyes. To be Richard’s, to _be_ Richard, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, one commonweal, one living breathing thing…

_My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies._

It’s only when Richard begins to bite Jared’s fingernail that Jared says ‘No, darling.’

Richard looks at him, eyes wide.

‘I thought,’ says Jared, ‘that you weren’t biting your nails anymore, my prince.’

Richard blushes and then turns back to his book. ‘I don’t know I’m doing it,’ he says. He lifts Jared’s finger to his teeth, and then turns to Jared, conscience-stricken. ‘Should I - ?’

Jared shakes his head. ‘It is yours, my prince,’ he says.

Richard grins, a quick fierce baring of his teeth, and his head drops down to his book once again. And Jared thinks: This soft golden time, this time of quiet and rest and contemplation, this melting time, this time of sweet princes with bitten lips and hungry eyes, these days are as blades of grass.

_I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer._

He bends his lips to Richard’s shoulder, and Richard starts. ‘Jared. Jared, sweeting, what – what’s wrong?’

And then Jared sees the sheen on Richard’s shoulder, and lifts his hand to his own cheek.

‘Jared – Jared, lamb, Jared, Jared…’

And Richard’s arms are around him, one hand patting him, gingerly, uncertainly, on his back, the other resting tremulously on his head. So earnest, thinks Jared, smiling at the worried, inexpert caution in the hands fidgeting over him. So nervous. So unsure, like an actor trying to memorise an unfamiliar part.

Jared feels his arms tighten around his prince, in a spasm of protectiveness, immense, inexorable. He hears himself saying ‘I don’t want you to go’ and cannot regret his bursting, selfish candour.

The hands on Jared still. Jared lifts his head to find Richard staring at him, head to one side. Jared blinks at him, wonders if Richard will suggest – as he did last time – that Jared accompany him. Braces himself for an argument.

But Richard says instead ‘I used to – when I visited you. In Lambeth. You used to. You left. Sometimes.’

Jared blushes. He did, and he knows now that Richard knows where he went.

‘I used to’ says Richard, ‘I used to think – I used to – if I – I took you – with me. To the – in the donjon. Kept you there.’ He stops, the colour rising in his cheeks. ‘B-bound. Waiting for me.’

Jared stares at Richard. ‘Bound, my prince?’

Richard blushes. ‘I – it was – the waiting was the – important. The waiting was what I.’ His eyes find Jared’s and then fall. ‘Yes. Bound.’

_He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love._

‘Show me how,’ whispers Jared.

Richard’s eyes fly to Jared. ‘Show?’

Jared nods. He brings himself up to his knees, and folds his arms behind his back. ‘Like this?’

Richard’s eyes are very wide. ‘Sometimes.’

Jared nods. ‘And what would I – what would _you_ – do, my prince?’

Richard considers Jared, and Jared lets his own eyes flutter shut. The light from the narrow casement struggling past the donjon motes, pale glaucous beam picking out the bones of his shoulders, his ribs, his thighs as he kneels, splayed out and gazing upwards like a supplicant or a sacrifice.

What would you do, my prince? What liberties would you afford yourself? What would you take? What would you replace or rearrange?

_Tell me_ , he thinks, _tell me, tell me what you would sup of first, what you would save for later, what you would ignore, give me your eyes and your hands and your mouth that I can see as you see, know as you know._

_I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me._

Richard swallows, and Jared smiles, bowing his head. Richard, he thinks, eyes burning in the gloom, fingers twitching by his side, probing, prying, all roads unveiled to him in an instant…

_Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib._

Trembling fingers touch Jared’s chin, raising it. ‘I would’ says Richard, ‘I would. Sometimes. I thought I’d - ’ and one thumb probes at Jared’s bottom lip. Obediently, Jared lets his mouth fall open and Richard’s thumb slips inside.

‘I thought sometimes’ says Richard, ‘I thought I’d.’ Jared’s eyes open to look at his prince, eyes skittering between his thumb in Jared’s mouth, wildly over his face, pink to the roots of his hair, down, down to his neck and chest. ‘I thought I’d - ’ and he gives up, burying his burning face in the crook of Jared’s neck. Jared tilts his chin to rub against his prince’s curls, wishes he could take his darling in his arms. _What will you, my prince,_ he thinks, _I am bound, bound as you desired._

_O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely._

‘I didn’t know’ says Richard, voice muffled, ‘I only thought I’d – that once you were locked away – s-safe – waiting for me, I could – we could – anything I wanted, I - ’

Jared gives Richard’s thumb a little kiss. Moves his head away to ask ‘And what was that?’

Richard shivers. ‘I didn’t know.’ He lifts his head to look at Jared. ‘But now I think - ’ and he reaches out one trembling hand to place over Jared’s heart. Slowly, his fingers draw up to hold Jared’s nipple, puckering and hardening. He rubs, gently, and Jared’s eyes flutter shut. His touch becomes more insistent and he whispers ‘You couldn’t stop me.’

Jared shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t.’

He feels the tickle of Richard’s curls as Richard bends his head to mouth at Jared’s other nipple. He sucks in a breath as Richard says, lips hovering a breath over Jared’s skin, ‘You couldn’t stop me.’

Jared shakes his head.

Richard’s fingers trail over Jared’s flank. ‘I could – you couldn’t stop me if I did this.’ He snatches at the thin skin over Jared’s hipbone and Jared bites his lip to keep from crying out. ‘Or this.’ And his thumbs dig into the soft flesh over Jared’s thigh.

‘N-no,’ says Jared. ‘No, I – _oh_.’

Richard has grasped Jared’s cock, a fumbling questing touch. ‘Wherever – whatever – I wanted to, to touch, to hold, Jared. You couldn’t – you couldn’t stop me.’

Jared shakes his head, whimpering.

‘Whatever I wanted to – use, take, have for – I could. Jared, I could, and, and you’d let me, you’d _have_ to let me.’

And Richard’s thumb is back, insistently, prising open Jared’s mouth. Jared moans, very quietly, as Richard’s thumb and finger slide inside.

‘Like that,’ says Richard, his voice strained.

Jared nods as another finger slips inside, roaming Jared’s mouth, slipping over his tongue. He thinks he might be allowed to – participate – at this point, so he lets his mouth close, he lets himself suck very lightly, and Richard groans.

‘I could,’ he says and swallows. Withdraws his fingers over Jared’s protesting whine. Plunges them back in. Nips at Jared’s tongue with his fingers and extracts them with a succulent sound. Out again. In again.

‘I could,’ says Richard and takes his fingers out abruptly. Jared’s eyes open to find Richard standing before him, palming his own cock with quick nervous movements, eyes on Jared’s face.

Jared’s eyes widen before he lets them close. He lifts his chin slightly and lets his mouth open.

There’s a long, soft sigh from Richard before bony fingers are grasping the base of his skull and pulling Jared’s head back. Jared’s eyes open as he feels the fingers of Richard’s other hand push at his mouth.

Obediently, he opens wider, sighing as Richard feeds him his cock.

‘I lied,’ says Richard, breath coming harshly, ‘before, I – when I said – when you asked what I’d imagined, and I said – I said I didn’t know, I lied, I’d thought, I knew I wanted – I’d thought of _this_.’

Jared hums around the royal cock, contentedly. Richard makes a soft low sound, his fingers tightening on the back of Jared’s head.

‘Jared,’ he says, ‘Jesu, _Jared_.’

Jared lets himself relax, pressing his tongue and lips into service. He basks in every aching cut-off gasp he wrings from his prince, every twitch of his hips, ever wet, startled word of praise.

_And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak._

It isn’t long before he’s swallowing, mouth flooding with the royal seed. He thinks, vaguely, that he can taste the fecund late-summer lushness of the plums they ate.

Richard pulls away with a wet sound, swaying on his feet. He drops to his knees before Jared, looking at him with heavy, wondering, sweet eyes. His brow and upper lip are beaded with sweat. Jared thinks, if he were allowed – if he were not bound – that he would like to reach out with a vial, consecrated for the purpose, keep them forever.

Richard rests his head on Jared’s shoulder, nuzzling and licking. ‘You couldn’t stop me.’

‘No,’ says Jared, turning his head to press a kiss to those damp curls. ‘I couldn’t.’

_A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts._

A wandering hand flits lower, lower on Jared’s belly, until thin fingers are encircling his cock again. ‘I could – make you spend – and you couldn’t stop me.’

‘I – I couldn’t,’ says Jared, ‘oh, Richard, I - ’

‘Mine,’ says Richard, bending forward to catch Jared’s lips in a brief soft kiss, ‘my doing.’

‘Yes,’ says Jared, allowing himself to thrust into Richard’s fist.

‘Mine,’ says Richard again, pressing harder.

‘Yes,’ says Jared, ‘yes.’

Richard grins, a swift baring of his teeth, and says ‘lie down.’

He reaches for Jared’s hands and holds them over his head, and Jared understands. He manoeuvres himself – inelegantly, with his hands held away from him – onto his back, and Richard positions his hands over his head.

Jared raises his head enough to look at his prince. Richard is looking at Jared – greedily, gloatingly – and Jared makes a small sound at the sight. Richard’s eyes flick to him and he grins again before lowering his head to rub his beard vigorously against Jared’s straining cock.

‘Ahhhh,’ says Jared, head dropping back to the stone floor.

Richard raises himself again on his elbows. Crawls over to Jared. ‘I could,’ he says, ‘t-take you,’ he blushes, ‘inside me,’ and there’s that flickering smile again, ‘and you couldn’t stop me.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ says Jared.

‘You couldn’t,’ says Richard, ‘even if you wanted to.’

Jared stills. ‘Would – my prince, would _you_ , if - ’

‘No,’ says Richard, immediately, stricken, hand reaching out to brush down Jared’s cheek, ‘lamb, no, I only meant - ’

‘But then,’ says Jared, ‘you know I wouldn’t stop you, darling, even if I could, I – Richard?’

Richard has scrambled off Jared, rummaging feverishly among the pile of their robes and returns with the vial of holy oil. ‘I need to,’ he mutters, coating his fingers with it.

‘No!’, says Jared, and Richard looks at him with round eyes. Jared blushes but continues ‘I – darling, you’re – you’re rough with yourself. I – I can’t allow you to - ’

And Jared’s right, Richard’s coated two of his fingers already, his sweet importunate prince.

Richard blushes, then frowns. ‘What, then – what do _you_ \- ’

Jared considers. He’d like to – he’d like nothing better than to – reach for Richard, coax him softly, sweetly open. But as it is -

‘You’re bound,’ says Richard. ‘How can you - ’

‘Oh,’ says Jared, ‘I – Richard, could you – if you were to place yourself, darling, over me,’ and he blushes, ‘my face?’

‘How - ’ says Richard, and then grins, a sly slow smile lighting of his face, as his cheeks heat and Jared wishes he could hide his own. ‘ _Oh_.’

And Richard turns around and shuffles backwards, knees bumping into Jared’s flank, until that perfect pale arse is poised over Jared’s mouth.

‘Is this - ’

‘Yes,’ says Jared.

‘Jared likes my arse,’ says Richard, in a taunting lilt, ‘Jared likes my arse.’

Jared blushes, alight with a delicious creeping shame. ‘It is – you are finely made in this, my prince, as in all your parts.’

‘This _part_ in particular,’ says Richard, excited and insistent. ‘Isn’t that right, _Holy Father_?’

Jared reaches up and presses a kiss to the royal rump, and Richard’s voice dies in his throat.

Jared knows that he has served better and more proficiently in this way before. The angle is inconvenient, and he’s never realised just how much he uses his hands and his long body even when he thinks he’s only pressing his mouth into use. But he’s never been a shirker, and as he insinuates his tongue past Richard’s pale cheeks, he absorbs his darling’s tremors and whimpers, and glories that he is of use – even here, being acted upon, being trammelled and yoked.

At length, he is satisfied that the hot soft flesh over his mouth will yield peaceably, and he allows Richard to pull away.

Richard leans his forehead against Jared’s hip, his chest moving in deep gulps of air. He raises himself slowly and reaches for Jared’s cock.

‘So hard,’ he says softly. He picks up the holy oil and pours it onto Jared. _A baptism_ , thinks Jared, and reminds himself to blush for his blasphemy.

Later.

‘You see,’ says Richard, ‘see how hard you are, how – how _greedy_.’

Jared moans. ‘ _Yes_.’

‘Mine,’ says Richard, ‘I did that.’

‘Yes,’ says Jared, ‘oh, Richard, yes.’

‘All me,’ says Richard, with a fierce vibrating intensity, ‘ _me_.’

‘You,’ says Jared, ‘you.’

‘I made you,’ says Richard, ‘I _made_ you.’

And there’s something in his voice that gives Jared pause, even as Richard is running thin fingers up and down the length of him, ‘I – darling, I wanted – I _want_ \- ’

‘Recall Aristotle,’ says Richard, grasping Jared’s cock and nudging it to his entrance, ‘all objects have – oh – their proper – ohhhh Christ – place, and seek to – mmm – return – to it. It’s not – oh Jesu – will, it’s – ahhh – compulsion.’

And for a moment Jared bathes in it, in the snug welcoming heat of it, in his prince’s gasping cries, but as Richard’s words sink in, he frowns.

‘Darling, that’s not – that is a statement of – oh – tendency, not – ahhh – inevitability.’

Richard makes no response except to grind down harder on Jared. Jared lets his head fall back, screws his eyes shut as he continues ‘My prince, we were given our – our burthens, our crosses – that we may choose to bear them, or set them – oh, oh – down. We cannot – mmmmm – we cannot refuse them because they are too weighty for us to bear.’

Richard stills on Jared. ‘Burthen?’

Jared opens his eyes. _My prince_ , he thinks, _sweetest and most terrible of crosses, secret and intimate rapture_.

_I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock_

‘I love you,’ he says, because it is true, even if it is irrelevant. ‘I love you,’ he says, with exigent clarity, hurling his weight behind the words as though they could hold Richard in place of Jared’s arms. ‘I love you,’ he says, as Richard bends to kiss him. ‘I love you,’ as Richard rocks and grinds and keens atop him, ‘I love you,’ as he finds his release inside his prince.

‘You know,’ says Richard, head resting in the indent on Jared’s chest, ‘I didn’t know you followed Pelagius.’

Jared is petting Richard’s hair idly, and turns to look at him. ‘Pelagius?’

Richard flaps vaguely. ‘When you said – we are given our crosses that we may choose to bear them.’ He lifts his head, eyes narrowing. ‘No one knows better the true measure of our strength than He who has given it to us; nor does anyone understand better how much we are able to do than he who has given us this very capacity of ours to be able.’ He cocks an eyebrow. ‘Are you a Pelagianist, your Grace?’

Jared smiles – he cannot but unfurl at Richard’s rare glimmers of mischief. ‘I only meant – you cannot, darling, you cannot claim that I am – guiltless – in our – the sin is mine, too. The desire. The – concupiscence.’

Richard huffs. ‘Your _beloved_ Augustine.’

‘Richard,’ Jared begins, but Richard burrows down on Jared’s chest.

‘I’m not –  _refusing_ – my burthens,’ he says, at length.

When Jared turns to look at him, he says ‘I – I want to take them _with_ me.’

Jared frowns. ‘Take them with you?’

Richard sits up. ‘To London.’

Jared’s eyes widen. ‘My prince, I thought - ’

‘I could, you know,’ says Richard. ‘Take you with me.’

‘My prince - ’

‘You know,’ Richard says, with bright eyes, ‘render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.’

Jared blinks. ‘But – I am not _rendering_ them unto Caesar, my prince, he is – _you_ are – taking them.’

Richard hunches a shoulder, and Jared hurries on. ‘And you forget – what of rendering unto God the things that are God’s, my prince?’

Richard looks mutinous. ‘I’m not denying your God the things that are his, Jared. I am only – taking – what is mine, since my _servant_ seems to have forgotten.’

‘I do not forget,’ says Jared, ‘but are you – are you arguing, my prince, that taking me back to London is – frailty, or necessity? Or that it is _right_? You cannot defend both fronts.’

Richard looks away in the distance. Bites his lip. Does not answer. Says instead ‘but _you_ could not be blamed. If I took you.’

Jared stares at him. ‘You would be, though.’

Richard shrugs. Jared says, in careful tones, ‘It is a – casual – way, to begin a war with Christendom, my prince. To abduct an officer of Holy Mother Church, to defend a – a quibble.’

Richard stills, and Jared breathes out in relief. And then Richard says ‘A war,’ and Jared sits bolt upright. He knows that voice.

‘Richard?,’ he says. ‘What are you thinking of doing?’

Richard shoots him a glance, and his eyes are dancing. ‘A war,’ he says again, and Jared’s heart leaps to his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the magnificent Master of Beef for looking over this thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I. Have No. Self-control. Whatsoever.
> 
> Come yell with me about these idiots on [itsevidentvery](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Also, this fic now has astonishingly, humblingly beautiful [art!](https://shfzw.tumblr.com/post/172729844799/art-inspired-by-a-medieval-au-jarrich-fic-based)
> 
> Go look at all the art on shfzw.tumblr.com. Thank me later.
> 
> There is also a gorgeous, gorgeous [moodboard](https://itsevidentvery.tumblr.com/post/175099930830/ladollyvitam-it-was-a-triumph-says-richard) by the fabulous ladollyvita!
> 
> And ladiesloveduranduran on tumblr has an incandescently thoughtful and haunting playlist for this fic.
> 
> I love you all and I don't know what I've done to deserve you.


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